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The shutdown on cricket in England and Wales will remain until at least 1 July, meaning the postponement of England's Test series against West Indies.
No domestic competitions have been cancelled yet, but the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) will meet on Wednesday to discuss the inaugural season of The Hundred, which is due to start on 17 July.
Players might need two-week isolation period before England-Windies Tests.
London Daily Telegraph.
Friday, 24 April 2020.
PTG 3096-15318.
Players from England and the West Indies may have to be quarantined for two weeks before their postponed Test series can begin and have no outside contact for the duration of the series, medical experts have warned. Medical officials from England and the West Indies plan to meet next week to discuss the logistics of how the matches, which it is now hoped will begin in July rather than the originally schedule of June, could be played safely.
Quarantining players for two weeks before the series “is a minimum”, said Professor Rowland Kao, an epidemiologist and data scientist at the University of Edinburgh. “It could very well be more. The problem is that there is still uncertainty over how good testing is”. Regular testing of players and officials would be essential for the matches to take place, a major complication given that the current lack of testing in the UK lags far behind that in many other European nations. But it is hoped that by July testing could have caught up dramatically.
England hope to stage the games behind closed doors in ‘bio-secure’ venues with hotels on-site - Old Trafford and the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, with Headingley another potential option though its hotel capacity is smaller (PTG 3088-15287, 19 April 2020).
The safest approach would be for all those involved in staging the games - which is estimated to be around 300, including players, security staff and hotel workers - to remain in strict quarantine for a minimum of two weeks before moving into the bio-secure areas, where they would be isolated for the duration of the series. “The key is to have a two-week period that offers a completely closed system where the virus can't get in before you can clear someone to enter the virus-free zone”, said Zach Binney, an epidemiologist from Emory University in the United States.
Family members could remain with the team throughout this period, but only if they quarantined too, Binney said. Players would not be able to go home to see their family in between games because of the risks of contracting Covid-19. On Wednesday, England allrounder Chris Woakes said players would be “open” to going several weeks without seeing their families.
To avoid the risk of transmitting the virus to anyone else after the series was over, players could also have to be in quarantine for two weeks after the end of the matches, Kao said. This means that all players would effectively have to be in quarantine for a period of around seven weeks - two weeks either side of the matches - for the three-match Test series against the West Indies to take place. In the two-week period before the series, England players would have to be in quarantine at home to minimise the risks of having the disease before entering the bio-secure area.
For West Indies players, the trip from the Caribbean would be an obvious potential risk for contracting Covid-19, so their contact outside the team would need to be kept to as low as possible in their first fortnight in England. The safest option, Binney said, would be for the West Indies to go to a hotel near the ground and quarantine there for two weeks - remaining in self-isolation so as not to infect the entire team if one player contracted coronavirus - after which point they could go to the bio-secure zone.
Experts suggested that, for all the complications with the idea, it could be enacted if the measures were strictly adhered to. “The organisers sound like they're thinking of a lot of the right things - doing this without fans, isolating players and support staff at a single site”, Binney said. “This seems like one of the more plausible plans I've heard - it's not happening until July, it involves a relatively small number of people, and it can be done at one or a handful of isolated sites. All of these make it more likely. But there's still a lot of uncertainty because it all depends on what the Covid-19 situation looks like in the UK in four months”.
By July, Binney said, new cases in the UK could be down to a very low level, in which case laxer rules may be possible, though testing anyone as they entered the bio-secure area and continued testing regularly would be essential. “More aggressive and sustained action now will hopefully lead to fewer cases by then, which would allow sports groups to relax some ideal infection control procedures while still maintaining an acceptable level of risk”.
But, Kao warned, the entire series would be imperilled if only one player - or, potentially, anyone in the team hotel - tested positive for Covid-19. “There isn’t any reason why it couldn’t work but there would be a fair bit of risk. If one person was found infected, then with a group of people in close contact for prolonged periods - as a team and its support staff would be - then it would be quarantine for at least a few weeks. Plus if they’d played recently it’s hard to imagine not also quarantining the other team”.
Medical teams and local public health officials would need to make plans assuming there was a positive test within the bio-secure zone and how best to manage it, Binney said. “Their actions could range from quarantining only people the case has had close contact with to shutting the entire thing down. If you are testing regularly, say every couple days, and we find that people are less contagious before they test positive then you could take less aggressive action. If you saw two or three cases, especially among players on different teams, you'd have to think more seriously about shutting it all down quickly”.
Playing a series of matches between two teams is considered far less risky than resuming an entire sports league, Binney said, “because of the lower number of people and the fact that it's easier to isolate in a single space with fewer teams”.
Players from England and the West Indies may have to be quarantined for two weeks before their postponed Test series can begin and have no outside contact for the duration of the series, medical experts have warned. Medical officials from England and the West Indies plan to meet next week to discuss the logistics of how the matches, which it is now hoped will begin in July rather than the originally schedule of June, could be played safely.
Quarantining players for two weeks before the series “is a minimum”, said Professor Rowland Kao, an epidemiologist and data scientist at the University of Edinburgh. “It could very well be more. The problem is that there is still uncertainty over how good testing is”. Regular testing of players and officials would be essential for the matches to take place, a major complication given that the current lack of testing in the UK lags far behind that in many other European nations. But it is hoped that by July testing could have caught up dramatically.
England hope to stage the games behind closed doors in ‘bio-secure’ venues with hotels on-site - Old Trafford and the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, with Headingley another potential option though its hotel capacity is smaller (PTG 3088-15287, 19 April 2020).
The safest approach would be for all those involved in staging the games - which is estimated to be around 300, including players, security staff and hotel workers - to remain in strict quarantine for a minimum of two weeks before moving into the bio-secure areas, where they would be isolated for the duration of the series. “The key is to have a two-week period that offers a completely closed system where the virus can't get in before you can clear someone to enter the virus-free zone”, said Zach Binney, an epidemiologist from Emory University in the United States.
Family members could remain with the team throughout this period, but only if they quarantined too, Binney said. Players would not be able to go home to see their family in between games because of the risks of contracting Covid-19. On Wednesday, England allrounder Chris Woakes said players would be “open” to going several weeks without seeing their families.
To avoid the risk of transmitting the virus to anyone else after the series was over, players could also have to be in quarantine for two weeks after the end of the matches, Kao said. This means that all players would effectively have to be in quarantine for a period of around seven weeks - two weeks either side of the matches - for the three-match Test series against the West Indies to take place. In the two-week period before the series, England players would have to be in quarantine at home to minimise the risks of having the disease before entering the bio-secure area.
For West Indies players, the trip from the Caribbean would be an obvious potential risk for contracting Covid-19, so their contact outside the team would need to be kept to as low as possible in their first fortnight in England. The safest option, Binney said, would be for the West Indies to go to a hotel near the ground and quarantine there for two weeks - remaining in self-isolation so as not to infect the entire team if one player contracted coronavirus - after which point they could go to the bio-secure zone.
Experts suggested that, for all the complications with the idea, it could be enacted if the measures were strictly adhered to. “The organisers sound like they're thinking of a lot of the right things - doing this without fans, isolating players and support staff at a single site”, Binney said. “This seems like one of the more plausible plans I've heard - it's not happening until July, it involves a relatively small number of people, and it can be done at one or a handful of isolated sites. All of these make it more likely. But there's still a lot of uncertainty because it all depends on what the Covid-19 situation looks like in the UK in four months”.
By July, Binney said, new cases in the UK could be down to a very low level, in which case laxer rules may be possible, though testing anyone as they entered the bio-secure area and continued testing regularly would be essential. “More aggressive and sustained action now will hopefully lead to fewer cases by then, which would allow sports groups to relax some ideal infection control procedures while still maintaining an acceptable level of risk”.
But, Kao warned, the entire series would be imperilled if only one player - or, potentially, anyone in the team hotel - tested positive for Covid-19. “There isn’t any reason why it couldn’t work but there would be a fair bit of risk. If one person was found infected, then with a group of people in close contact for prolonged periods - as a team and its support staff would be - then it would be quarantine for at least a few weeks. Plus if they’d played recently it’s hard to imagine not also quarantining the other team”.
Medical teams and local public health officials would need to make plans assuming there was a positive test within the bio-secure zone and how best to manage it, Binney said. “Their actions could range from quarantining only people the case has had close contact with to shutting the entire thing down. If you are testing regularly, say every couple days, and we find that people are less contagious before they test positive then you could take less aggressive action. If you saw two or three cases, especially among players on different teams, you'd have to think more seriously about shutting it all down quickly”.
Playing a series of matches between two teams is considered far less risky than resuming an entire sports league, Binney said, “because of the lower number of people and the fact that it's easier to isolate in a single space with fewer teams”.
Now called off I think ?
ReplyDeleteJust a bit of controversey please. Feel free to challenge. Seems Windies series is sadly off, so refund for people who have bought tickets.
ReplyDeleteWith county nembershio, my approach has been not to seek or accept a refund if offered by Notts, to support the club.
That position of mine is highly likely to change if matches paid for within the membership are played behind closed doors or in Abu Dhabi.
Frankly I am not prepared to pay to watch matches I cannot watch. There is difference between giving money and having it taken
Under those circumstances I would seek a 100 % refund.
In the event of that not being received Notts and pro Cricket would not receive any more money from me
Yet again Mr Harrison the CEO of ECB is pushing policies that have not been discussed with county members and supporters through the Supporters Association, or in any other way.
He listed 5 priorities to the Cricketer Magazine, and we were not included.
Very much final straw time for me unless I get that refund, or behind closed door idea (which h I admit I loathe) and Abu Dhabi plan are both dropped.
If the County Championship could get a start in August/September and then had to be extended into October/November with matches in Abu Dhabi to make those games having been played in England meaningful and of relevence, being part of a real competition, then I'm all for it as a one off. Alternatively any County Championship could be played over two seasons: perhaps 4 games this year, to be added to the 14/16 next year providing there's no COVID-20/21 outbreak. 100s of 1000s watch the live streams over a season from their workplace etc so Abu Dhabi wouldn't be that different for a lot of cricket watches who don't have the circumstances to allow them to spend work days at cricket. When all goes back to normal, those still in a job will be playing catch-up big time.
DeleteMy views are also controversial. I believe that members should not be counted as public and should be admitted regardless - with any members who feel vulnerable and do not wish to attend getting a refund on the season. But I don't see any likelihood of members being treated as non-public. From what I see, nothing is cancelled yet. The June internationals are rescheduled. The fixture list hasn't been confirmed. Therefore, we haven't reached a position where agreements on tickets and memberships can be made. From media reports, it seems that the Ireland ODIs will be cancelled and replaced by rescheduled Australia games from July. ECB say that refunds will be offered for any cancelled ECB-run games and also I remember reading that if ECB reschedules a game, refunds will be offered to those who cannot attend. No explicit mention of what happens if not cancelled but behind closed doors, though I think it would be treated as cancelled and refunded. ECB say tickets and memberships for counties are up to the counties not ECB to decide, but I do remember reading that ECB will offer 'advice' to counties as to how to proceed. In the event no refund on membership or credit for next year is offered and there are no games to attend, I wonder if there's any chance of a Section 75 Credit Act claim succeeding for non-provision of services paid for. It will come down to what is paid for. Someone I know who supports Yorkshire CCC said on their forum many people were saying memberships aren't season tickets. Indeed, I know of golf clubs that aren't refunding members when the course is closed, so I am unsure if memberships could be claimed in the same way as tickets. Finally, I thought one of the key premises of sport was it is non-political. Therefore, to me, it is deeply concerning that the government have any say about when sport resumes or when it can have spectators - I thought sport was effectively outside the remit of government, except in regard to funding for grassroots and some Olympic candidates.
ReplyDeleteRidiculous 'Max' - health is of paramount importance regardless of anything else and our Politicans (like or loathe them) are being sensible in keeping the 'lock down' - do you think we could all go to Cricket etc. matches and cross-infect one another, return to our homes and workplaces and infect even more people would be acceptable because it is SPORT? I have read very few less sensible comments - apart from Donald Trump's drinking disinfectant - you didn't suggest that to him did you?
ReplyDeleteSteady everyone, please. I did invite controversial views !
ReplyDeleteAny restart has a degree of risk, if numbers locally and nationally are way down then members only is a possible re maxbarnish posting
Are Members somehow less susceptible to Coronavirus then? It is not just ourselves we need to consider but others who we could infect. STAY AT HOME. HELP THE NHS. SAVE LIVES.
ReplyDelete