Hussain: Australia’s Ashes lecture ‘bit rich’

FORMER captain Nasser Hussain (right) has criticised Australia’s lack of empathy for England’s players as doubts persist over whether Joe Root and his team will travel for the Ashes series due to the host nation’s strict quarantine rules.

The visitors are scheduled to play the first of five Tests against Tim Paine’s team in Brisbane from December 8.

“England have played 18 Test matches since the start of the pandemic in March 2020,” Hussain wrote in his Daily Mail column. “That’s five more than anyone else – and 14 more than Australia, whose four Tests all came at home against India last winter.

“I’m quite proud of the way in which England’s Test team have kept the show on the road in difficult circumstances, moving in and out of bubbles and spending time away from their families. It’s draining. Mental health has suffered. So for people in Australia to start lecturing them, and telling them they should simply suck it up, is a bit rich.”

Cricket Australia has been negotiating with authorities and England’s board over travel conditions and whether players’ families can visit during the Christmas and New Year period.

Australia has placed caps on international arrivals, and there is a mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine even for the fully vaccinated.

Paine said last week that the Ashes would go ahead regardless of some England players’ reluctance to travel.

“Unless you’ve spent time in a bubble – and some of these guys have done it repeatedly – you don’t get to lecture other people on how they should behave,” wrote Hussain. “It’s a delicate balancing act for Root and Ashley Giles, the director of cricket.

“They need to be considerate about the players’ mental health as they prepare to enter yet another bubble on one of the toughest tours of all. But they also know their only chance of winning in Australia is if everyone is on board.

“That’s why I don’t like these easy judgments from the other side of the world. If the last 18 months have taught us anything, surely it’s the importance of empathy.”