Old foes bicker as the Ashes will go ahead
The 2021-22 Ashes series will go ahead after the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) issued a statement earlier this month. It stated the English team will tour Australia "subject to several critical conditions being met".
English players citing "bubble fatigue" are requesting more clarity around critical conditions which are understood to be visa approvals for families and quarantine settings upon arrival in Australia.
Questions are also being raised over whether the English team will have to quarantine domestically in Australia. It is hoped Australia's border restrictions will be relaxed further in time for the Ashes.
Australia's lack of perspective and Ashes preparations
During the edifying antics and criticism from the Australian cricketing fraternity, England were doing what Aussies have not been doing – playing cricket. Australia have seemingly accepted every reason not to play overseas Tests since 2019.
Influential figures in Australian cricket are desperate for a stack of Tests in the coming months. Australia haven't played a Test since losing to India at the Gabba in January, but they remain strikingly confident ahead of the Ashes.
The most provocative comments were those from Australian captain Tim Paine, who has his own breakfast radio show on Friday mornings – perhaps a perfect indication of the lack of Test cricket being played.
Paine said on SEN Hobart’s Jack and Painey:
“No one is forcing any England player to come. That is the beauty of the world we live in, you have a choice – if you don’t want to come, don’t come.”
Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon told Fox Sports’ Road to the Ashes podcast that it was a “small price to pay”. He said “he wouldn’t have a doubt” about touring for the Ashes. Lyon did note that he was wary he hadn’t been in the same situation as the England players.
David Warner, who has played in several T20 tournaments across the globe during the pandemic, insisted that he "sees England's point of view."
Some of these comments are understandable, given it used to be a six-month boat trip in order to play an Ashes series.
Not only is the Australian Test team devoid of any recent matches, but the domestic summer is becoming shambolic as well. The competing COVID-19 ideologies at the state government level continue to wreak havoc in the Sheffield Shield.
The country’s two most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, have been in lockdown for months, while the rest of Australia lives largely free from the pandemic.
It is hoped the competition can be reformed at the very least to give New South Wales and Victorian players (the bulk of the Test squad) three matches against each other in order to see enough red-ball action before the Ashes commences.
The Australian team have made two white-ball tours since last summer. They lost the five-match T20I series in West Indies by a 4-1 margin. Their Bangladesh tour wasn’t even broadcast on television. The Aussies also lost that five-game T20I series 4-1.
Ashes-bound English players strong in their stance
England have played 18 Test matches, including six in Sri Lanka and India combined, since the pandemic hit. During this time, they have been in bio-security environments that don’t permit any interaction with the outside world.
Perhaps an indication that the issue is not unique to the "whining poms," South African fast bowler Kagiso Rabada told the Stumped podcast that "bio-security bubbles are becoming unsustainable. Rabada said:
“I think these bubbles are extremely challenging, they’ve tried to cater for the players, but it’s still bitter-sweet. We can’t get out of the room. At times, I won’t even lie, I think it’s normal. Sometimes you feel down. You know you’ll snap out of it, but you feel down. That’s what these types of environments do to you.”
England’s most high-profile player Ben Stokes will not be touring due to mental health issues and an ailing finger injury. Jofra Archer will also miss the tour due to an elbow injury.
Apart from that, England will send their best 17-man squad to Australia, with none citing COVID-19 concerns.
England chief administrator Ian Watmore suggested that touring conditions must adhere to their wishes in order to allow a "squad befitting of the Ashes". However, this was a poor negotiating tactic that lacked genuine authority for the Ashes’ stature and prominence in world cricket.
After all, the Ashes is much larger than any individual player and the hysteria over the squad is largely unwarranted. Unfortunately, key players have always missed out at times, dating back to Greg Chappell, who missed the 1981 series, and Dennis Lillee, who pulled out of the 1977 Ashes.
Cricket is enjoyed by billions of people around the world. It's in the best interests of the fans for the players to be in the best mental state possible.
The English team recently withdrew from a four-day tour of Pakistan. Although they did not receive the same security threats or government advice that New Zealand received to do the same weeks earlier, the ECB hid behind "bubble fatigue" as the reason to not tour.
This was a major blow to Pakistani cricket – a team that toured England for seven weeks in 2020 to keep the ECB afloat.
It's important that the big three (Australia, India and England) do not pick and choose when to tour at such ease.