No more England bubbles
RULES TO SOFTEN OVER MENTAL HEALTH FEARS
ENGLaNd’S cricketers could be spared the ordeal of months- long biosecure bubbles next season because of concerns over their mental health.
the ECB are already planning for a second summer of living with coronavirus, which could mean a further £100million hit to the game’s finances. and chief executive tom harrison ( below) admitted: ‘ It could easily be worse than that.’
But the administrators are determined to ease the strain on the players, with Jofra archer recently expressing reluctance to go to this winter’s Big Bash League in australia because of the prospect of another other hotel quarantine. ‘We need what wellbeing to understand rg within these environments - looks like,’ ’ said dr Nick Peirce, , the ECB’s chief f medical officer.
‘there’s no chancee of a five-test India series eries next summer with everybody erybody being locked in for ththatt whole h l time. We saw there was a ceiling probably of three to four weeks, and you need time out.
‘We need to understand how to bridge out — or if we even need to have these environments. If we can get away from having bubbles we would.’
assuming the pandemic has not disappeared by the start of the next English season in april, one possibility will be to relax protocols by allowing players to stay at off-site hotels.
that arrangement is in place at the IPL in the United arab Emirates, and the ECB privately acknowledge it will be hard to persuade players to return to the strict arrangements that helped make a success of the visits of West Indies, Ireland, Pakistan and australia.
the move would also cut costs, with almost £1m spent on Covid-19 tests alone this year.
though the ECB remain wary of jeopardising a series as lucrative as the visit of India, Sportsmail understands that Steve Elworthy, their director of events, is working on plans to use up to 10 venues in 2021.
this summer, only Emirates Old trafford and Southampton’s ton’ s Southampton’ sagageas Bowl st aged men’men’s international matmatches, and derby hohosted the women.
Meanwhile, England’s laEngland’s hopes of fufulfilling their postponed ppostponed two-test seseries in Sri Lanka in JanuaryJa could be scupperedscu by the Sri LankanLank government’s refusal to waive visa requirementsit for athletes.
the ECB intend to send their white- ball squads to South africa next month, where they hope to use Cape town as a base. But doubt remains over the proposed trip to India in February and March, because of the country’s high prevalence of Covid cases.
the UaE could yet host those matches — five tests, and three one-day and t20 internationals — but harrison said: ‘We will not sign off on plans we’re not comfortable with in terms of our No 1 priority, which is the health and wellbeing of players and staff on those tours.’