What is being hawked as a bio-secure environment for cricket to be played in spite of the sweepingly lethal progress of the novel coronavirus pandemic at many places implies two things. First, there will be no spectators in the stands and, secondly, the players in the fray will be socially distanced.

Additionally, there can’t be any saliva- shining of the ball for swing to be coaxed. Matches, we have been told, will be preceded by virus-testing of the cricketers in a comprehensive way.

Advertisement

Michael Holding, of course, wondered aloud why saliva would have to be dispensed with if a bowler was Covid-19-free, but he was in no chair of authority and hence, bypassed. It shows cricket, much like football, is desperate for the restart that promises money partially to offset the damage inflicted on it by the deadly scourge.

And yet, the fact that there is no really impregnable dyke against the killer virus was conceded very recently in a roundabout fashion by Ehsan Mani, the Pakistan Cricket Board’s current chief.

The former administrative head of the International Cricket Council who is on one of its important panels now let it be known earlier this week that there might not be any ICC tournament this year. He said with his customary self-assurance that he knew what was going on in its Dubai headquarters.

The Pakistani reporters whom he was addressing did not seem to follow their questions up with any reference to the Indian Premier League ~ expected to supplant the Twenty20 World Cup, which Australia now seems reluctant to be saddled with ~ but if Mani meant the IPL could go ahead as it was but a domestic competition, an egregious double standard was what underpinned the seemingly routine chinwagging in comfortable virtual reality.

Why should cricket pitch this status-centric segregation when saving lives is of the essence? Even if the letter carries greater weight with the congenital clerk fortuitously positioned beyond his cerebral powers, this is no time for compartmentalised decision-making, never mind how football is going about its business.

Cricket, smaller in reach and impact, has a duty to protect its ground-level exponents, which calls for a coordinated approach cutting across the levels it is played at. Well might the ICC, differing, leave it to its constituent units to pick their own paths but that would be akin to shouldering arms to the wrong ball.

If the ICC isn’t sure that cricket’s elaborate safety mechanisms, thought up newly, will not suffice to deny the virus any leeway ~ Covid-19 is being cited to explain why the World Cup can’t be held in Australia later this year ~ at a time when we are purportedly months adrift of the finding of a vaccine, the least it can do is to call a meeting – a video conference, if you like ~ and urge restraint. All lives matter, after all.