Atherton Goes AC BC

Bottom-up approach may help the game’s post-pandemic revival.

Mike Atherton.

The Times.

Tuesday, 24 March 2020.

PTG 3061-15156.

During England’s recent tour to South Africa that, suddenly, seems a lifetime ago, I spent one evening in the cinema watching Sam Mendes’s film ‘1917'. As it happened, most of the England team were in there too, something that I knew would amuse the director, who is a cricket fanatic. I’ve known Mendes for some time, so I dropped him a text to tell him.

His reply, part of which I hope he won’t mind me using at this juncture, struck at the heart of what makes sport worthwhile and important: “Bizarre though it may seem, I thought of the England team a fair amount while I was making it”, he wrote, “which might account for some of the character names having a familiar ring to them [anyone notice Private Stokes, Private Cooke, Private Butler . . . ?].

“One of the things that struck me when I wrote about men who strike up unlikely and unexpected friendships in war, was that the only friendships I knew that were similar came from when I was playing cricket. Those bonds are powerful . . . they cross class and race and social background”.

As for most people, I imagine, the Covid-19-enforced break has encouraged a great of deal of introspection about life and what it is that makes living worthwhile and what kind of society we’d like to see when things gets back to normal. The bigger questions are for elsewhere — this article is in ’The Times' sports section after all — but it’s reaffirmed my belief that sport is important in its own trivial way mainly because of the contribution it makes to social cohesion, cutting across race, class and background as it does, which was the point Mendes was making.

What strikes me more and more, then, contemplating cricket BC and AC (before and after coronavirus) is the importance of stronger connections between the levels of the game, from the foundation clubs at the grassroots, to the counties, to the England team at the top. What kind of game would we like to see when it returns has been the question pushed at each of the correspondents of the main sports, and for me, it is a greater sense of “connectedness” that is key (PTG 3059-15148, 23 March 2020).

This sounds vague and waffly and some might say that this “one game” approach has already been at the heart of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (EWCB) governance of the sport. But it would be hard to argue that the connections between top and bottom have not become more frayed, as international players have come to play almost exclusively for country not club, as counties have recruited so broadly, through Kolpaks, overseas and non-local players, that their playing staffs often bear little resemblance to the regions they represent, and foundation clubs are left to fend for themselves in a hand-to-mouth existence.

Owen Slot, writing a manifesto for rugby on Saturday, had some very concrete proposals. He wrote of reducing player wages, of ending relegation, of central contracting. Henry Winter, for football, put the spectators at the heart of his plea, through more sensible pricing and awareness of travel logistics. All good and worthy points.

My own ideas are less concrete and, to be truthful, only half-forming in my mind, but professional sport will have to acknowledge some of the socio-economic trends that are likely to emerge in the fallout from this pandemic. Sport has always moved in step with the times, and in cricket, since the advent of the Indian Premier League in 2008, this has been driven by free-market economics and globalisation, with players earning vast sums from flitting between engagements, connections to their roots weakening all the time.

Although globalisation won’t be halted by this hiatus, we may see a rebalancing between the forces of globalism and localism. The pandemic may encourage a return to localism to some degree, because, during the crisis, communities have never been more important, whether the village WhatsApp group that prevents loneliness and hardship, or the local butcher or greengrocer that has managed to stay open to provide a service. As things have disintegrated, geography has come to matter — where you live, who you live next to, the sense of community.

So while some think that the consequences for sport will be essentially market-driven, that some clubs and counties will fold, it may be that we also see a reversal of the trends that have made these institutions more vulnerable in the past few years. Membership of anything — political parties, county cricket clubs, local clubs and societies — has been declining in the increasingly atomised world we inhabit, but, post-coronavirus, as we realise that atomisation is not to be recommended, these community-based associations may see an uplift and become stronger again.

So my manifesto for change is vague, and encapsulates only a sense that, first and foremost, the survival of your local club is paramount and that a far greater engagement with it in future is necessary. It is here, after all, where most young children get their first taste of the game, where lifelong enthusiasms begin, where the focal point of community cricket is based and where we all get a sense of the diversity of race, class and background of which Mendes was talking and which underpins our common understanding. It all flows from there (PTG 3057-15137, 21 March 2020).

The professional county clubs need to feed off this sense of community by committing themselves to producing and employing a far greater number of cricketers from within their own boundaries who should, in turn, have indelible links to these grassroots clubs  (PTG 3057-15138, 21 March 2020). There is little point a county club existing if they compete only through artificial means, through the short-term importing of players who were produced elsewhere. International cricket needs to be trimmed to allow players to engage with their county clubs again.

It is likely, when we emerge from this threat, that prevailing economic and social orthodoxies will look very different, and professional sport will have to reflect that. This is not a call for a retreat into xenophobia or isolation — overseas players have always been welcome in England and have contributed significantly to county cricket and cricket will remain a global game — but there may be a realisation that localism and community matters as well. So from clubs, to counties to the England team, a sense of belonging must matter too.

Cricket’s survival in the last generation has been driven by a top-down approach, committing resources to the England team in the hope that this would inspire. Post-Covid-19, a bottom-up approach, by engaging more with our community institutions, may help the game’s post-pandemic revival.

EWCB’s four-day game will need to compromise this year.
Alastair Cook.

The Times.

Sunday, 22 March 2020.

PTG 3059-15149.

For me, the start of spring has always been very simple. If England duties haven’t required me elsewhere, then February has been indoor lambing on the farm and indoor nets in Chelmsford, while March has meant pre-season training.  Invariably the latter has involved a week or two spent somewhere hot. You might think heading out to the Middle East at that time of a year for a cricketer is a bit of a jolly. And, in a sense, you would be right because as an exercise in team bonding it has real value.

As with many counties, a lot of our younger players will have passed the winter months away from these shores, in T20, T10 leagues or playing club cricket in Australia. We might not have seen each other for six months so the chance to re-acquaint in a warm, relaxed environment is important.  There’s a more practical reason why these kind of breaks are crucial. It’s one thing to get your eye back in at the indoor school but nothing really compares to batting in outdoor conditions on proper grass surfaces. It’s even more critical for bowlers who can finally come in off their full run-ups.

This year, as in 2019, Essex headed to Abu Dhabi with the plan of getting in some serious net sessions and a few practice matches against other counties. From there we would fly on to Sri Lanka, where England also happened to be playing, for the traditional county champions v MCC match. The fortnight that has elapsed since we left the UK now feels like an eternity.

We flew out on Monday, 9 March. The coronavirus and measures to counter its spread were discussed but there were no grave concerns because the government guidelines put no restraint on travel to that part of the world and sport in this country continued as normal.  Abu Dhabi could not have felt better. Our hotel was sparsely populated. The withdrawal of Somerset and Worcestershire, whom we were due to play, was a little surprising at the time but, we figured, our presence out there would offer us a chance to steal a march on our rivals when the season started.

Day by day, the gravity of the public health situation at home and abroad escalated. On Friday, March 13, we were called in for a team meeting to be informed that the game in Sri Lanka would not be happening.  No sooner had that been confirmed than it was announced that England’s Test series had been scrapped and they would be returning overnight. We landed back last Monday. Instructions from the club dictated that we stay at home and keep in physical shape to start back in training whenever told to do so. Gyms, however, would be off-limits.

I am one of the lucky ones. I don’t have the virus, nor have any of my family been affected. I also have the benefit of living out in the countryside on a farm. That means two things: I can do plenty of running and have something other than cricket to keep me busy — lambing will carry on — though I didn’t realise how much sport I watched and listened to until there was none on.

I don’t expect any sympathy, nor am I asking for any, but it does feel a little weird not to have a bat in my hand at this time of year. As a cricketer, your life is planned for you. When I represented England — and it’s not much different for county players — I could have written out my diary for the year at the start of January. I would start gearing up for action in February so that I would be primed come April when the competitive stuff started and that would take me through to September at the earliest.

None of that applies now. Instead, I go for a run, lift some weights, then plug my physical data into a computer so Essex’s strength and conditioning coach can check I’m fit and healthy. In the meantime, we wait in limbo.

This is not a complaint — my brother’s wife is a doctor so I appreciate where the real hardship is being borne — just me laying out the new reality to which a lot of sportsmen and women are now adjusting. Those of us paid to play sport are desperately lucky to do something we love for a living and will miss it now that it’s gone for however long this break lasts. But I wonder now if it’s the routine we will miss as much as the actual competing.

I could have retired from all cricket when I quit the international stage in 2018 but I stayed on because I loved playing for Essex and that means the County Championship. I couldn’t have asked for a better first season back on the circuit than winning the title in the last game of 2019.  Will we get to defend that title? As things stand, there will be no cricket in England until 28 May at the earliest. I can say this because I have no financial interest in the outcome but it strikes me that those proposing that the authorities prioritise the most profitable parts of the English summer — The Hundred, T20 Blast and the national team — have a point.

Can we salvage the four-day competition? Possibly but that will demand that we all pull in the same direction. We may well be looking at an abbreviated tournament, with more back-to-back matches and stretching into early October (sometimes warmer than the second half of April when the season usually starts). We may, as a result, see more floodlit cricket and ticket prices will almost certainly have to be reduced.  None of this is ideal but we all have to see the bigger picture — for our sport and the country as a whole.