The Twelfth Man 2020

Features F riday the thirteenth (of March). It began in football, the author- ities being pilloried in the print media after a European Champions’ League match in Liverpool had gone ahead despite a number of players at other clubs saying they had the symp- toms. Up to this point the govern- ment’s advice had been confusing in the extreme, but now the governing bodies took the matter in their own hands. There would be a suspension of all elite football for at least three weeks. By lunchtime the entire sporting calen- dar was collapsing before our very eyes as sport after sport followed suit and announced their own curtailments. In cricket, later that day the ECB an- nounced that the England team in Sri Lanka would be brought home. On the domestic season, where the consider- ation was not about stopping play but whether to start it, the ECB said it was ‘building contingency plans’ but was working on ‘the expectation the season proceeds as normal’. But, just a week later, as the government finally started to provide some certainty by ordering all pubs and restaurants closed, the ECB announced there would be no pro- fessional cricket before 28 May and that it was ‘modelling various scenarios’ for a possible season start in June, July or August. It was this decision that ena- bled Mark Arthur to outline what was happening at Yorkshire’s live-streamed AGM that took place in front of just 22 members, suitably socially-distanced, on the morning of 21 March. Worse was to follow. On Monday 23 March the government ordered the country into an effective lock-down. To be fair, although the ECB may have been a little behind the pace initially, it then moved swiftly and decisively. At the end of the month it announced it was making £61 million available to support clubs, of which £20 million was for recreational cricket. Largely, in the case of the counties, this was bringing forward money that would have been coming anyway at some point for facil- ities’ maintenance and by way of part- nership arrangements. For a county such as Yorkshire, some £18 million in debt, the situation was especially worrying. The club had al- ready said 2020 would be tough due to the lack of a Test Match and ODI to bring in revenue, but now it was also deprived of the new income it has begun to earn through its hospitality facilities in the new stand. By 6 April Yorkshire was the first county to put its playing staff on the government’s unprecedented job retention scheme, joining its non-playing staff who had already been ‘furloughed’ since the end of March. CEO Mark Arthur and a small skeleton staff were the only people still doing paid work. At ECB level it was announced that a number of staff were being placed on ‘furlough’ and those who remained, in- cluding Tom Harrison, Chief Executive, were taking salary reductions up to 25%. As the lockdown wore on through April it was increasingly evident that any return to normality was likely to be a long time coming. All sports were agonising about how a restart could be managed, including the option of play- ing behind closed doors. Cricket, along with football, rugby and horse-racing, was invited to a working group with government officials on how to achieve any resumption. It was no surprise that on Friday 24 April the ECB announced there would be no cricket before 1 July, meaning the loss of nine rounds of the County Championship and the Vitality T20 Blast pushed back to late summer. Clearly the view was that such cricket as may be possible should be the format that would bring in some much-needed rev- enue. Amongst the casualties in the Championship was Yorkshire’s match in June against Lancashire at Scarbor- ough, the loss of which has profound implications outside the game for local businesses as well as huge disappoint- ment for members. The Hundred, due to start in July, posed a particular conundrum as its entire ethos rested on big crowds and bring- ing in players from overseas. Small wonder it took another special board meeting on 29 April before the ECB bowed to the inevitable and delayed the launch until 2021. But Harrison was quick to state that cricket would need the new competition more than ever after the pandemic was over. He was, of course, talking about money. As for the international schedule, the hope was held out that Test Matches and ODIs, perhaps even played simulta- neously, might lie at the heart of a com- pressed schedule of matches played at ‘bio-secure’ venues behind closed doors to provide much needed fare for the broadcasters who were grappling with problems of their own as subscription income fell away. By the time Harrison appeared at the Culture, Media and Sport Parliamentary Select Committee on 5 May he said the matches lost so far had cost cricket £100 million and went on to estimate losses of £380 million if the entire season were to be lost. And so all eyes turned to Boris John- son in a televised address on 10 May to hear how it was planned that the coun- try could exit the lockdown. There was no early reprieve unless you happened to be a golfer or tennis player and it took a few days for details to emerge about other sport. By comparison with football, consumed by self-interest and squabbling, cricket’s possible return was a seemly affair. International crick- et against West Indies and Pakistan was Friday the thirteenth By lunchtime the entire sporting calendar was collapsing before our very eyes as sport after sport announced their own curtailments