UNSAFE TO TAKE CRICKET TO UAE

THe United Arab emirates is being advanced as the host nation for what remains of the IPL and then the Twenty20 World Cup, with India in such turmoil. Yet the UAe’s vaccination programme, using the Sinopharm jab from China, is inefficient. More than half the adults in the UAe have had two vaccines, yet cases remain high.

The World Health Organisation say the Sinopharm jab is 78 per cent effective at stopping symptoms, but other countries relying on it, including Chile and Brazil, are concerned about infection rates.

So it would be more logical for the IPL to be played here, after the India Test series, giving the UAe time to bring conditions under control. Yet any suggestion that the success of the UK vaccine programme is put to positive use is dismissed as arrogance.

Wrong. Arrogance would be to fly everyone to a location where Covid is not under the same level of control and take a chance it all works out.

IOC president Thomas Bach was due to attend a torch relay event in Hiroshima. Now he will not visit Japan until June at the earliest due to current emergency Covid restrictions — with the Tokyo Games due to start a month later. Alarm bells should be ringing loudly now over this reckless and unnecessary gathering of humanity from across the world. Every week comes a signal that it should not be taking place; every week that signal is ignored. Even in Japan, 60 per cent in the latest poll want the Games cancelled. Who is this Olympics for? We all know the answer to that. He can’t get there this month, but by the time he does, it will be too late.