Bubbles And Deep-cleaning: How Cricket's Project Restart Is Shaping Up
조회 수 1 추천 수 0 2020.07.16 14:18:05While the Premier League is beset by problems over when and how it might return, there is growing optimism in cricket that the international programme can be fulfilled behind closed doors from July.
Two crucial meetings will be held by the ECB via Zoom — one with West Indies chief executive Johnny Grave to thrash out details of their tour and the other to 'select' the first group of England players who will return to training on Wednesday.
Sportsmail's cricket correspondent PAUL NEWMAN looks at how the sport's very own 'project restart' will work...
Cricket bosses hope they can complete the international calendar behind closed doors
After an unforgettable summer in 2019 cricket has been ground to a halt by coronavirus
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The schedule
It now seems certain England will press ahead with the plans revealed by Sportsmail on May 3 and stage six Tests this summer at two 'bio-secure' venues, the Ageas Bowl and Emirates Old Trafford.
Edgbaston and Durham have expressed interest in holding the rearranged games and could be used for training camps, but the hotels on site at the Southampton and Manchester grounds make them perfect to become what the medical experts are calling 'island sites'.
The plan is for the first Test against West Indies to be held at the Ageas Bowl on July 8, with the last two played back to back at Old Trafford.
Then the white-ball leg of the summer will kick in with three 50-over games against Ireland, all in Manchester, starting on July 30 before the second Test series, against Pakistan, begins at Old Trafford on August 5.
The last two Tests against Pakistan will be at the Ageas Bowl before three Twenty20 matches. Then in September comes the trickiest part of the schedule to deliver when Australia, at this stage perhaps the most reluctant of the three planned touring squads, are due for white-ball matches.
The players
It really does seem as though the majority, if not all, of England's players, as opposed to some dissenting football voices, are very much behind cricket's plan to return to work.
Perhaps there is not as much self-interest as at relegation-threatened Premier League clubs, but players, management and the ECB do seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet — something of a rarity.
There have been some key voices in this circle of trust. The England players have faith in the all-important medical staff, notably head of medicine Nick Peirce and Gurjit Bhogal, the doctor who put the social distancing regulations in place on their aborted tour of Sri Lanka in March.
The England team have a good relationship with team director Ashley Giles, while Sportsmail understands another influential voice in convincing the players of the safety of the project has been Richard Bevan, chief executive of football's League Managers Association and a figure well respected in cricket through his work with the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA) and, latterly, Team England.
All players appear to be in favour of returning, even though the ECB have told them it will not be held against them if they want to pull out, just as it was not when Eoin Morgan and Alex Hales did not tour Bangladesh in 2016 for security reasons.
That number includes Jack Leach, who suffers from Crohn's and takes immunosuppressant medication. Even though that puts him on the list of those most vulnerable to infection, England are hoping and expecting the left-arm spinner to be available as and when cricket returns.
Players are mostly in favour of bringing the game back, unlike dissenting voices in other sports
The training
A squad of up to 32 players could be asked to attend the individual training sessions that will begin with around 16 bowlers returning to seven county grounds on Wednesday for prepared, stage one, staggered sessions each attended by one coach and a physio.
This will be very much red-ball focused with all England's main bowlers plus some on the fringe, such as Craig and Jamie Overton from Somerset and Lancashire's Saqib Mahmood, attending.
The players will turn up in their kit and will go home as soon as their hour-long session is over.
They will use their own box of balls throughout, while not being allowed to apply saliva to them to aid shine. All sessions will be outdoors, with the bowlers having their temperatures checked before they start, but plans have been made to deep-clean indoor schools at the various grounds for use should the weather intervene.
Returning to training will bring another set of protocols as stars look to get back to fitness
A batting group, which is set to include the main England batsmen plus Test candidates such as Essex's Dan Lawrence, will start at the beginning of June. Stage two will see players training in groups ahead of a third stage, full training camp planned for June 23.
England will have two squads as the summer goes on, with coach Chris Silverwood and his assistant Graham Thorpe likely to be in charge of the Test players and Paul Collingwood taking charge of the white-ball team, who will not return to training until July.
England will face selection issues over what form of cricket their multi-format stars play, but for now the likes of Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali — now available for red-ball cricket again after his self-imposed exile — are all set to feature in the red-ball preparations.
Cricketers will take part in heavily monitored sessions, with the squads carefully selected
The grounds
It is not without irony that the perceived inaccessibility of Hampshire's Ageas Bowl that has played a part in denying them the regular Test cricket they crave is now a prime reason why they are the perfect venue to stage three Tests this summer.
The ground is ideal for England's purposes, with the 171-room Hilton Hotel, with three floors of bedrooms, the perfect 'household' for everyone involved in the project.
The hotel also has eight dining facilities, a Wellness centre with eight treatment rooms, three gyms, an indoor school and the potential for drive-through testing — plus an 18-hole golf course to keep the players occupied on down time between matches.
'We feel we're in a good position to demonstrate the full range of our potential,' said Rod Bransgrove, Hampshire's chairman and the man behind the purpose-built international venue.
'We certainly think we've got some unique features and we're in a good place, with our rural location and all the facilities we have. It's the perfect residential venue for matches. We're keen to help.'
Old Trafford is equally well suited, if not in quite as isolated an area, with its 150-room Hilton Garden Inn Hotel giving Lancashire the edge over Edgbaston.
The Ageas Bowl in Hampshire is seen as a perfect host for England's needs with it's Hilton hotel
The logistics
A huge ongoing operation, led by ECB head of events Steve Elworthy, is needed to get cricket's behind-closed-doors show on the road and the sport still needs to 'jump through lots of hoops', as one source close to the plans described it, before the first Test can take place.
'We're still thinking of all the things necessary, the risks posed, and it just gets bigger and wider,' said Elworthy. 'But that is the situation and we will deliver on every single one of those to make sure it does happen.'
Elworthy's task is to reduce the figure of 1,500 people usually employed at any international day's cricket to 250, with both teams housed separately in 'functional areas' within the Test grounds.
Other groups given functional areas will be media, officials and groundstaff and they will be instructed to stick to designated areas. There will be signposted one-way systems in grounds to help people navigate from A to B. Hand sanitiser stations will be located at the entrances to all communal areas.
There will be a ring of security around each ground stopping entry for anyone other than the players, management, match officials, venue staff (whose duties will include fetching the ball from stands to stop players clambering over advertising boards), ECB event staff, groundstaff and broadcasters.
It is hoped up to 10 members of the written media will be included, situated away from the usual centres at each ground — sitting either in the pavilion or the Point in Manchester — for maximum exclusion from the players.
Broadcasters and journalists are likely to be allocated to two separate 'teams', with one group covering the matches at the Ageas Bowl and the other those at Old Trafford. Post-match interviews for written media will be done via video apps such as Zoom.
Getting cricket back on track will take a huge effort, reducing on-site staff massively
Leaving 'the bubble'
The one big area where there has been a hint of dissent from players has been the prospect of being away from home for nine or more weeks throughout the programme, even though it is the sort of time they are used to being away for on tour.
A bio-secure Test is a different proposition and Giles has made it clear to medical staff and Elworthy that there must be the capacity for players to move in and out of site at the end of matches or series, with captain Joe Root hoping to attend the birth of his second child in July while also taking charge of as many Tests as possible.
'One thing that's been made very clear to the playing staff and all involved is the safety of everyone is at the front of this and as soon as that's compromised it can't happen,' said Root.
'So whether that means ways of getting people in and out of the bubble safely so they can see family or whether scheduling allows that, we'll have to wait and see. I
'It's an important part of what we're doing to make sure guys can go out and perform at their best and that's not compromised by being away for a significant amount of time in an isolated environment.'
Getting players into the 'bubble' might be possible but the situation will be delicate long term
The opposition
One of the key factors in 'project restart' is the willingness of West Indies and Pakistan to travel and put themselves through the extensive safety measures, including spells in quarantine, that will be necessary for them to play.
After all, there is nothing in it for them financially, with cricket's riches heavily weighted towards the bigger nations by giving all profits from bilateral series to the home side.
And one question has to be asked — would England travel to Pakistan or the Caribbean if the situation were reversed and they had one of the highest death rates from the virus in the world while England was relatively unaffected?
It is perhaps crucial here that West Indies and Pakistan have forward-thinking English chief executives in Johnny Grave and Wasim Khan who see the wider picture and the financial importance of cricket happening in England this summer.
But their generosity is not unlimited. Both countries expect the ECB to pick up the tab for the charter flights for them to get here — which could be as much as £500,000 — and the cost of the extra players they will bring in enlarged squads. The ECB, who estimate the cost of the loss of the whole season to be a devastating £380million, are happy to oblige.
The pair of administrators, leading candidates to succeed Tom Harrison at the ECB whenever he moves on, are also believed to be using this opportunity to further the cause of their employers.
Grave, for instance, wants a fairer share of cricket's riches to go to West Indies and other 'smaller' nations, while Wasim is pushing for England to return the compliment and tour Pakistan for the first time since 2005 either next year or in 2022.
'We've got to get back playing cricket and our players are chomping at the bit to get involved, but we can't rush it,' said former Surrey and PCA administrator Grave. 'I've been pleasantly surprised with the solidarity of our players. We were one of the first to go back to Pakistan and now we're replacing security experts with medical experts.
'We have told the ECB we want four weeks' preparation and then it would be three back-to-back Tests. The lure of a tour to England is still very strong and I'm confident we will bring a full-strength squad.'
England were set to clash with the West Indies in June but the date is looking unlikely
The women's finale
It was feared that women's international cricket, along with the whole domestic programme, would prove impossible to stage in a Covid-19-wrecked season and even the ECB's head of women's cricket, Clare Connor, selflessly admitted last week the men's programme had to take priority for financial necessity.
But the most recent schedule seen by Sportsmail sees England's women completing the season in September against South Africa, with their showpiece series against India cancelled.
Women's cricket remains a huge part of the English landscape and there is a big will to salvage at least some of the matches for late season.
Cricket bosses are battling to make the women's cricket season a part of the restart plans
The bottom line
The stakes are incredibly high, with the ECB estimating losses for the season would be reduced by £280m if the international programme can be fully staged.
Chief executive Harrison has earned widespread praise for the way he has handled the biggest crisis imaginable (questions on how the ECB whittled away their reserves for emergencies from about £80m to £8m can wait for another day), while Sky TV, whose backing will make or break the sport, have been hugely supportive and understanding.
There are obvious concerns about the atmosphere and intensity of behind-closed-doors matches but cricket can overcome those hurdles better than most sports because Tests outside England are often played to near-empty stadiums anyway.
A key figure close to the situation told Sportsmail that if he had a million pounds to bet, he would place it on cricket taking place this summer, but all the hard work and planning would come to nothing if there is a second spike in the virus.Then all bets would be off.
For now cricket is doing all it can to make it happen.
RELATED ARTICLES
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Can you guess which former England cricket international... Hain stops play: How a 20-year-old plotted to halt apartheid... England and Pakistan could play three Tests and three... October's Twenty20 World Cup likely to be postponed for a...
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Two crucial meetings will be held by the ECB via Zoom — one with West Indies chief executive Johnny Grave to thrash out details of their tour and the other to 'select' the first group of England players who will return to training on Wednesday.
Sportsmail's cricket correspondent PAUL NEWMAN looks at how the sport's very own 'project restart' will work...
Cricket bosses hope they can complete the international calendar behind closed doors
After an unforgettable summer in 2019 cricket has been ground to a halt by coronavirus
RELATED ARTICLES
Previous
1
Next
Can you guess which former England cricket international... Hain stops play: How a 20-year-old plotted to halt apartheid... England and Pakistan could play three Tests and three... October's Twenty20 World Cup likely to be postponed for a...
Share this article
Share
32 shares
The schedule
It now seems certain England will press ahead with the plans revealed by Sportsmail on May 3 and stage six Tests this summer at two 'bio-secure' venues, the Ageas Bowl and Emirates Old Trafford.
Edgbaston and Durham have expressed interest in holding the rearranged games and could be used for training camps, but the hotels on site at the Southampton and Manchester grounds make them perfect to become what the medical experts are calling 'island sites'.
The plan is for the first Test against West Indies to be held at the Ageas Bowl on July 8, with the last two played back to back at Old Trafford.
Then the white-ball leg of the summer will kick in with three 50-over games against Ireland, all in Manchester, starting on July 30 before the second Test series, against Pakistan, begins at Old Trafford on August 5.
The last two Tests against Pakistan will be at the Ageas Bowl before three Twenty20 matches. Then in September comes the trickiest part of the schedule to deliver when Australia, at this stage perhaps the most reluctant of the three planned touring squads, are due for white-ball matches.
The players
It really does seem as though the majority, if not all, of England's players, as opposed to some dissenting football voices, are very much behind cricket's plan to return to work.
Perhaps there is not as much self-interest as at relegation-threatened Premier League clubs, but players, management and the ECB do seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet — something of a rarity.
There have been some key voices in this circle of trust. The England players have faith in the all-important medical staff, notably head of medicine Nick Peirce and Gurjit Bhogal, the doctor who put the social distancing regulations in place on their aborted tour of Sri Lanka in March.
The England team have a good relationship with team director Ashley Giles, while Sportsmail understands another influential voice in convincing the players of the safety of the project has been Richard Bevan, chief executive of football's League Managers Association and a figure well respected in cricket through his work with the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA) and, latterly, Team England.
All players appear to be in favour of returning, even though the ECB have told them it will not be held against them if they want to pull out, just as it was not when Eoin Morgan and Alex Hales did not tour Bangladesh in 2016 for security reasons.
That number includes Jack Leach, who suffers from Crohn's and takes immunosuppressant medication. Even though that puts him on the list of those most vulnerable to infection, England are hoping and expecting the left-arm spinner to be available as and when cricket returns.
Players are mostly in favour of bringing the game back, unlike dissenting voices in other sports
The training
A squad of up to 32 players could be asked to attend the individual training sessions that will begin with around 16 bowlers returning to seven county grounds on Wednesday for prepared, stage one, staggered sessions each attended by one coach and a physio.
This will be very much red-ball focused with all England's main bowlers plus some on the fringe, such as Craig and Jamie Overton from Somerset and Lancashire's Saqib Mahmood, attending.
The players will turn up in their kit and will go home as soon as their hour-long session is over.
They will use their own box of balls throughout, while not being allowed to apply saliva to them to aid shine. All sessions will be outdoors, with the bowlers having their temperatures checked before they start, but plans have been made to deep-clean indoor schools at the various grounds for use should the weather intervene.
Returning to training will bring another set of protocols as stars look to get back to fitness
A batting group, which is set to include the main England batsmen plus Test candidates such as Essex's Dan Lawrence, will start at the beginning of June. Stage two will see players training in groups ahead of a third stage, full training camp planned for June 23.
England will have two squads as the summer goes on, with coach Chris Silverwood and his assistant Graham Thorpe likely to be in charge of the Test players and Paul Collingwood taking charge of the white-ball team, who will not return to training until July.
England will face selection issues over what form of cricket their multi-format stars play, but for now the likes of Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali — now available for red-ball cricket again after his self-imposed exile — are all set to feature in the red-ball preparations.
Cricketers will take part in heavily monitored sessions, with the squads carefully selected
The grounds
It is not without irony that the perceived inaccessibility of Hampshire's Ageas Bowl that has played a part in denying them the regular Test cricket they crave is now a prime reason why they are the perfect venue to stage three Tests this summer.
The ground is ideal for England's purposes, with the 171-room Hilton Hotel, with three floors of bedrooms, the perfect 'household' for everyone involved in the project.
The hotel also has eight dining facilities, a Wellness centre with eight treatment rooms, three gyms, an indoor school and the potential for drive-through testing — plus an 18-hole golf course to keep the players occupied on down time between matches.
'We feel we're in a good position to demonstrate the full range of our potential,' said Rod Bransgrove, Hampshire's chairman and the man behind the purpose-built international venue.
'We certainly think we've got some unique features and we're in a good place, with our rural location and all the facilities we have. It's the perfect residential venue for matches. We're keen to help.'
Old Trafford is equally well suited, if not in quite as isolated an area, with its 150-room Hilton Garden Inn Hotel giving Lancashire the edge over Edgbaston.
The Ageas Bowl in Hampshire is seen as a perfect host for England's needs with it's Hilton hotel
The logistics
A huge ongoing operation, led by ECB head of events Steve Elworthy, is needed to get cricket's behind-closed-doors show on the road and the sport still needs to 'jump through lots of hoops', as one source close to the plans described it, before the first Test can take place.
'We're still thinking of all the things necessary, the risks posed, and it just gets bigger and wider,' said Elworthy. 'But that is the situation and we will deliver on every single one of those to make sure it does happen.'
Elworthy's task is to reduce the figure of 1,500 people usually employed at any international day's cricket to 250, with both teams housed separately in 'functional areas' within the Test grounds.
Other groups given functional areas will be media, officials and groundstaff and they will be instructed to stick to designated areas. There will be signposted one-way systems in grounds to help people navigate from A to B. Hand sanitiser stations will be located at the entrances to all communal areas.
There will be a ring of security around each ground stopping entry for anyone other than the players, management, match officials, venue staff (whose duties will include fetching the ball from stands to stop players clambering over advertising boards), ECB event staff, groundstaff and broadcasters.
It is hoped up to 10 members of the written media will be included, situated away from the usual centres at each ground — sitting either in the pavilion or the Point in Manchester — for maximum exclusion from the players.
Broadcasters and journalists are likely to be allocated to two separate 'teams', with one group covering the matches at the Ageas Bowl and the other those at Old Trafford. Post-match interviews for written media will be done via video apps such as Zoom.
Getting cricket back on track will take a huge effort, reducing on-site staff massively
Leaving 'the bubble'
The one big area where there has been a hint of dissent from players has been the prospect of being away from home for nine or more weeks throughout the programme, even though it is the sort of time they are used to being away for on tour.
A bio-secure Test is a different proposition and Giles has made it clear to medical staff and Elworthy that there must be the capacity for players to move in and out of site at the end of matches or series, with captain Joe Root hoping to attend the birth of his second child in July while also taking charge of as many Tests as possible.
'One thing that's been made very clear to the playing staff and all involved is the safety of everyone is at the front of this and as soon as that's compromised it can't happen,' said Root.
'So whether that means ways of getting people in and out of the bubble safely so they can see family or whether scheduling allows that, we'll have to wait and see. I
'It's an important part of what we're doing to make sure guys can go out and perform at their best and that's not compromised by being away for a significant amount of time in an isolated environment.'
Getting players into the 'bubble' might be possible but the situation will be delicate long term
The opposition
One of the key factors in 'project restart' is the willingness of West Indies and Pakistan to travel and put themselves through the extensive safety measures, including spells in quarantine, that will be necessary for them to play.
After all, there is nothing in it for them financially, with cricket's riches heavily weighted towards the bigger nations by giving all profits from bilateral series to the home side.
And one question has to be asked — would England travel to Pakistan or the Caribbean if the situation were reversed and they had one of the highest death rates from the virus in the world while England was relatively unaffected?
It is perhaps crucial here that West Indies and Pakistan have forward-thinking English chief executives in Johnny Grave and Wasim Khan who see the wider picture and the financial importance of cricket happening in England this summer.
But their generosity is not unlimited. Both countries expect the ECB to pick up the tab for the charter flights for them to get here — which could be as much as £500,000 — and the cost of the extra players they will bring in enlarged squads. The ECB, who estimate the cost of the loss of the whole season to be a devastating £380million, are happy to oblige.
The pair of administrators, leading candidates to succeed Tom Harrison at the ECB whenever he moves on, are also believed to be using this opportunity to further the cause of their employers.
Grave, for instance, wants a fairer share of cricket's riches to go to West Indies and other 'smaller' nations, while Wasim is pushing for England to return the compliment and tour Pakistan for the first time since 2005 either next year or in 2022.
'We've got to get back playing cricket and our players are chomping at the bit to get involved, but we can't rush it,' said former Surrey and PCA administrator Grave. 'I've been pleasantly surprised with the solidarity of our players. We were one of the first to go back to Pakistan and now we're replacing security experts with medical experts.
'We have told the ECB we want four weeks' preparation and then it would be three back-to-back Tests. The lure of a tour to England is still very strong and I'm confident we will bring a full-strength squad.'
England were set to clash with the West Indies in June but the date is looking unlikely
The women's finale
It was feared that women's international cricket, along with the whole domestic programme, would prove impossible to stage in a Covid-19-wrecked season and even the ECB's head of women's cricket, Clare Connor, selflessly admitted last week the men's programme had to take priority for financial necessity.
But the most recent schedule seen by Sportsmail sees England's women completing the season in September against South Africa, with their showpiece series against India cancelled.
Women's cricket remains a huge part of the English landscape and there is a big will to salvage at least some of the matches for late season.
Cricket bosses are battling to make the women's cricket season a part of the restart plans
The bottom line
The stakes are incredibly high, with the ECB estimating losses for the season would be reduced by £280m if the international programme can be fully staged.
Chief executive Harrison has earned widespread praise for the way he has handled the biggest crisis imaginable (questions on how the ECB whittled away their reserves for emergencies from about £80m to £8m can wait for another day), while Sky TV, whose backing will make or break the sport, have been hugely supportive and understanding.
There are obvious concerns about the atmosphere and intensity of behind-closed-doors matches but cricket can overcome those hurdles better than most sports because Tests outside England are often played to near-empty stadiums anyway.
A key figure close to the situation told Sportsmail that if he had a million pounds to bet, he would place it on cricket taking place this summer, but all the hard work and planning would come to nothing if there is a second spike in the virus.Then all bets would be off.
For now cricket is doing all it can to make it happen.
RELATED ARTICLES
Previous
1
Next
Can you guess which former England cricket international... Hain stops play: How a 20-year-old plotted to halt apartheid... England and Pakistan could play three Tests and three... October's Twenty20 World Cup likely to be postponed for a...
Share this article
Share
32 shares
In case you loved this short article and you want to receive more details relating to Service femme de menage Quebec generously visit our webpage.
