‘GETTING CRICKET ON AROUND THE WORLD IS WHAT WE ALL WANT’ SILVERWOOD
ENGLAND head coach Chris Silverwood is optimistic of a full winter schedule for his side as the cricketing world comes to terms with playing through a pandemic.
The England and Wales Cricket Board pulled out all of the stops to get the international game back up and running inside bio-secure bubbles at the Ageas Bowl and Emirates Old Trafford over the past three months, successfully staging all six of its planned series.
As it stands the men’s side have no more fixtures officially into their schedule but with the ECB blueprint providing the basis for other boards to work from, there is growing optimism that some sense of normality could return to the schedule – albeit with empty grounds likely to become the norm. Talks are ongoing behind the scenes but a best case scenario would involve England’s fulfilling a whiteball tour of South Africa from late November, then holding a training camp in the United Arab Emirates ahead of a rescheduled two-match tour of Sri Lanka and a lucrative Test series versus India.
The latter trip could also be relocated to the UAE, as the forthcoming Indian Premier League season has been, but the once distant prospect of a packed playing calendar is back on the agenda.
“It’s been successful here and if we can do it so can other countries. Getting cricket on everywhere around the world is what we all want,” said Silverwood. “There’s quite a bit up in the air but we’re hopeful after Christmas the Test tours [Sri Lanka and India] will go ahead. South Africa we’re looking at before Christmas for a white-ball tour and then we’re looking at a red-ball camp in the UAE as well to prepare the guys. We’re hopeful that all this will be on. We’re learning every day of how we deal with Covid and hopefully if we continue to do that we’ll play.”
If the schedule does unfold according to plan there are likely to be some tired bodies and minds, particularly for the nine players who were due to board a charter flight to Dubai for the IPL on Thursday.