Isolation breaches not cricket

Taking a ‘‘dim view’’, in Ashley Bloomfield’s measured tones, is akin to him delivering a head-high bouncer. The Director-General of Health has good reason. For the second time this month, members of a touring international cricket team have been caught breaching managed isolation protocols in New Zealand. First, members of the West Indies squadwere found to have repeatedly breached isolation rules, basically the not-so-onerous task of staying in hotel rooms during quarantine.

This week Pakistani players were seen mingling in the corridors of their Christchurch hotel, sharing food, notwearingmasks. What makes this episode more flagrant is that six of the touring players have tested positive for Covid-19, so the corridormeet-up potentially spread the virus further and risked the whole tour.

Bloomfield’s ‘‘dim view’’ of such behaviour has led to a final warning to the Pakistan team, and theymay also lose an exemption allowing them to train.

Playing sport for your country is a privilege for which a few days’ confinement in a hotel room is a small price to pay, particularly in a year when the prospects of any international competition had appeared bleak.

On top of that, New Zealand has limited spaces in managed isolation. Who knows how many Kiwis desperate to get home from overseas have been pushed further back in the queue as two large cricketing squads have taken up space.

Some argue that the episodes highlight the need for tighter controls at the border for high-risk arrivals.

Epidemiologist ProfessorNick Wilson advocates for a traffic light system, where there is no access, or more stringent isolation rules – such as locked hotel room doors – for those from red zone countries like the United States. There would be fewer barriers, potentially testing and home quarantine, for green zone countries like the Pacific Islands or Australia.

Are there any mitigating factors for the cricketers dropping the ball? Not really.

In Pakistan, where cases of Covid-19 are rising quickly again, to more than 386,000, there might not be an appreciation of just how different the situation is in New Zealand, with community transmission contained and the border posing the biggest threat.

However, for professional cricketers, used to hotel life and with both countries already having toured muchmore seriously affected England during lockdown, there can be little excuse.

It can’t be ignorance because the Ministry of Health says theNew Zealand rules were clearly spelled out to the teams. Questions have to be asked about the adequacy of the tour management’s oversight.

That just leaves less charitable reasons, such as arrogance in thinking the rules don’t apply. That impression has only been reinforced by the response of a Pakistan fast-bowling great.

Shoaib Akhtar seriously overstepped the mark when he blamed New Zealand Cricket and our Government for having the temerity to suggest the tour could be cancelled for isolation breaches. We should instead, apparently, be indebted to Pakistan for coming.

‘‘We don’t need you,’’ he said, even suggesting a five-year boycott of New Zealand if his countrymen were sent packing.

Putting aside the Black Caps’ current higher ranking in tests and one-dayers, the thing New Zealand doesn’t need is cricketers playing fast and loose with the rules, potentially infecting staff and opening the door to a new community chain.

Are there any mitigating factors ...? Not really.