By the time you read this, the International Cricket Council (ICC) meeting on post-coronavirus resumption and scheduling would have taken place on Thursday. Given the continued uncertainty, the meeting is unlikely to deliver anything tangible with regards to the point of resumption – but the long-term scheduling might be the more relevant discussion.
Even so, while the cases are fast rising in Pakistan, in many countries the trend is become slower. This has allowed many sporting bodies around the world to make certain estimates about the resumption of the games. And it appears as though the ICC is largely following suit as far as that particular front is concerned.
Pakistan vs India was among the series which has seen Women's Championship points being divided
Now, it’s safe to say that the resumption of all sports, all over the world would follow a similar timeline. As already discussed in this space, everything up to August has almost entirely been called off.
The only exceptions are incomplete months-long competitions, like the European football leagues, for instance. Most of them have contested around two-thirds of their seasons, and there are all kinds of complications involved in completely scrapping the ongoing competitions altogether.
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has even suggested that the seasons could be completed behind closed doors. Perhaps finishing seasons behind closed doors makes sense, if the only other alternative is to scrap it all. But one wouldn’t back the idea of organising entire tournaments without spectators just so they could be played a few months early – or in an allotted window of the calendar year.
Pakistan were scheduled to tour the Netherlands in the summer
There appears to be consensus that action is likely to resume in September. But will it be behind closed doors?
With the ICC meeting to involve the chief executives of ICC’s 12 full members, along with three from the associate members, perhaps the bigger talking points are regarding the financial hit of the pandemic and how certain boards can sustain themselves, along with the fate of the long term competitions like the World Test Championship and the bilateral series that were to be played as a part of it. Therefore, the calendar which has been largely set till 2023, should be the prime focus of the meeting.
On Monday, South Africa’s tour to Sri Lanka, originally schedule for June, became the latest to be postponed. On Tuesday, the Daily Mail reported that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has decided to postpone the scheduled T20 ODIs series Australia from July to September.
Given that Pakistan’s tours to England and Netherlands have been scheduled for roughly the same time, they would be expected to follow suit soon. South Africa themselves are currently scheduled to tour the West Indies for two Tests and five T20Is in July and August, which is expected to be scrapped as well.
What is interesting is that if the Daily Mail report is accurate, the postponement of a July tour to September reconfirms what we’ve discussed in this space over the past few weeks: that there appears to be consensus that action is likely to resume in September.
This goes with the global assessment in other sports as well, with the French Open in tennis having been moved from June to September. Even the Netherlands has postponed sports events till September, which should result in the formal postponement of the Pakistan tour as well.
However, the bigger question marks would be – something that the tennis world is currently mulling as well – whether to play behind closed doors, if that is the only option. It is safe to say that the ICC calendar review would also include financial considerations of playing behind closed doors, as compared to rescheduling and indeed abandoning altogether.
What, however, should not happen is sharing of points in the series that could not take place to impact the World Test Championship, which has already been under criticism. This is precisely what has happened to the Women’s Championship, where points were split in three series. Unfortunately, the lesser money in the women’s game perhaps allowed such a decision.
There’s an idea under consideration for Adelaide, later this year. We’ll discuss that, and more, next week.
