Selfish behaviour in pandemic has cricket ducking and weaving

IN THE space of a few days New Zealand abandoned a tour of Pakistan and England refused to embark on one to the same neglected cricket destination.

This development comes hot on the heels of India’s decision to hoof it and abandon the fifth Test against England in Manchester.

News the Taliban has replaced the Afghanistan board’s executive director with the nephew of a government leader fills nobody with confidence about its future fixtures.

The Taliban has reportedly also blocked the IPL from being broadcast in Afghanistan because the event’s fireworks and dancing girls are an affront to fundamentalists.

Things are in such an agitated state ahead of Afghanistan’s first Australian Test match in Hobart in November it will be a shock if it goes ahead.

Cricket is afflicted with cancel culture.

Not playing is the new norm, not that there is anything new in these recent developments, more a confirmation that things are possibly getting worse not better.

Before Christmas England fled South Africa.

After Christmas Australia refused to go to South Africa.

In between times India caused Australian administrators peptic ulcers with its reluctance to play the third and fourth Tests of the BorderGavaskar Trophy series.

Cricket is facing an existential crisis. Covid and politics have brought the exhausted game to its knees.

If the past and present provide any indication of the future then the Ashes is an uncertain event this summer.

International cricket teams – Australia excluded – are jetlagged travellers forced into a life on the road, pushing through fog in airports they can’t name, headed for destinations they can’t remember.

The game is being lost in transit. It’s not just teams. It’s players, too.

You know things are getting real when players pull out of the IPL – as a number have.

For Pakistan, which is just getting cricket started in the country again, the decision by England to withdraw so soon after New Zealand left was heartbreaking, financially crippling and infuriating.

The worst of this pandemic is the proliferation of selfish behaviours it has sparked, the every-man-for-themselves approach, and cricket has proved itself to be as guilty of this as any politician, party or person.