Indian men’s cricket team captain Virat Kohli said that he was unsure of whether or not the game of cricket will remain the same once it resumes after overcoming the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Game changing a lot? Man I do not know what is going to happen, it is so strange thinking even of practice sessions like instinctively you want to clap/hi-five, but you cannot do that, you will meet people after a long time, and you would have to fold hands and stay away,” Kohli told Ravichandran Ashwin during the interaction.
“I know it sounds strange, it might be a permanent feature until there is some sort of cure or vaccine that comes out, we will need to make that a part of our routine,” he added.
However, the Indian skipper also pointed out that if the changes were put to effect, it won’t be hard for the players to acclimatise with the new challenges.
“We all find it strange, with all things in life, it won’t be that difficult to make a part of our lives,” the 31-year-old said.
Meanwhile, on May 22, the International Cricket Council released its ‘Back to Cricket Guidelines’ for the resumption of the game.
To resume training, the boards and the management have been asked to “consider appointing a Chief Medical Officer and/or Biosafety Official who will be responsible for implementing government regulations and the biosafety plan to resume training and competition”.
Regular hand sanitisation when in contact with the ball, proibition on the use of saliva and not touching eyes and mouth after coming in contact with the ball have been made mandatory under the guidelines.
Before and after the training, sanitisation of personal equipments is also a part of the new rules. Among the various new measures, social distancing between players and umpires on the field has been marked as the most important.
In case of a match, according to the guidelines, the teams have to ensure a mandatory pre-match 14-day isolation for the players with regular health and temperature check-ups and COVID-19 testing.