Give us our game back – before it is too late

It was crackers for Boris Johnson to say the cricket ball is a “vector of disease” and the decision to block the sport returning at club level is a hammer blow.

After the Prime Minister’s announcement, I had a very honest and open conversation with Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, and he shares my frustration. He is a cricketer himself and he wants to play again. Hopefully, over the next week or so, the situation can change and we can at least get the kids playing. But I worry our sport is not doing enough to help itself.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has done a great job to ensure the international matches will be played this season.

But I worry that grass-roots cricket has been neglected. Professional sportsmen are paid to play for England. It is their job. But thousands of people give up their time to organise junior and club cricket. They are the true lovers of the game and they deserve to be looked after.

Golf reacted and adapted to the Covid-19 situation for both the recreational and professional side of the game to great success and is thriving, possibly at the expense of cricket.

There have to be hard questions asked of the ECB. Has it done enough to get the recreational game back being played? I think it has tried. You have to understand it has to play a political game when dealing with the Government. But, ultimately, has it made enough noise?

I know it has proposed different ideas to the Government about six or eight-a-side cricket, but it has not worked.

There are steps cricket can take to make it safer and I would start with junior cricket. In many ways, that is the most important level of the game.

I would start with eight-a-side pairs cricket. You can play with a hand sanitiser in your pocket, all socially distanced and bowlers could even use their own ball if necessary.

Look at golf. For the first few weeks, you could only play in two-ball groups. You had to book online, play only nine holes and there were marshals on the first tee to make sure people were not interacting. You could not play through another pair in front, and there was 10 minutes between each tee time. Everyone accepted it because they were just happy to play again.

Cricket has to think imaginatively, too. The ball is not a threat. It is nonsense to think it is a spreader of disease once you ban putting saliva on it. Any small threat can be nullified easily.

Cricket can be made safe more than most other sports. Coaches and umpires, who are desperate to get the game back on would happily police it. Once you touch the ball, squirt some sanitiser on your hands.

Passing the ball around the field back to the bowler will go. Just throw it straight back to the bowler. And how often do you touch the ball in the field anyway? When batting, you wear gloves. The wicketkeeper wears gloves. The umpires can wear gloves as well. Do not share kit, turn up ready to play and bring your own food.

On July 4, I can take my son’s cricket team to a restaurant, but they cannot play a game of cricket. That cannot be right.

If the game does not start soon then we can rule out the rest of the summer. If that happens, we can say goodbye to a lot of players who have now taken up golf or other sports.

The game needs people playing the sport at the weekend. You do not want kids to suddenly turn their attention to golf.

I know a lot of my friends’ kids are playing golf now. Will they want to come back to cricket? They might not if they do not get to play this summer.

There are a number of enthusiastic diehard cricket lovers who are desperate to see a game played. They thought they would get the green light yesterday.

Now, a lot of them are telling me they feel like it has been ripped away from them. The old saying goes “look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”. At the moment, it feels like cricket is looking after the pounds and forgetting about the pennies by working hard for the England team, but not doing enough for the club or junior cricketer.

I realise this is a very hard time and some very tough decisions have to be made by governments and governing bodies. But this is an easy one, compared to other life-and-death calls they make every day.

Get cricket back on. Give thousands of people, tired after months of lockdown, their summer sport back before it is too late.