India in offer to play next summer
FROM BACK PAGE their best to ease those fears with more testing and more stringent Covid protocols, but the players had been spooked and were not for turning.
ECB chief executive Tom Harrison said: “The match has been cancelled because of serious concerns over the mental health and well-being of one of the teams.”
India have offered to reschedule the match, possibly next summer when they return for a white-ball series, which would save most of the £30million broadcast money, the remaining £10million for ticket sales and associated costs will only be covered by insurance if the game is forfeited – and the ICC must rule on that.
Publicly, the ECB have expressed their sympathy for the way the players are feeling, having gone through something similar in South Africa last December.
Then the England players insisted they left that tour with three ODIs unplayed, much to the dismay and frustration of Cricket South Africa.
Now the ECB are the ones frustrated especially because the Indian camp are believed to have brought Covid into their camp by attending a book launch with 150 nonmasked and non-tested guests within a “managed” rather than a bio-secure environment.
Harrison added: “We moved players from bio-secure bubbles into managed living standards, which is a very different set of protocols, which is much more about how you interpret them as individuals.
“There is quite a lot of trust in the way that people operate those environments. Sensible standards of behaviour and, of course, common sense plays a role.”