What we've learnt from cricket's second Covid year |
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| CCF Committee (cypruscricketfedaration11@gmail.com) | |
| 10/01/2022 | |
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The last live game for me before Covid closed down our world was the World Cup final at Lord's. Yes, that one. And somewhat overcome by the moment, I ended my piece that night with this: if cricket were to die tomorrow, we would still have this game. How was I to imagine these words of pure hyperbole would turn mildly and eerily prophetic? It wasn't until early last month, nearly 30 months since that manically unforgettable day, that I found myself at a cricket match once again.
It's an absurdly unfair comparison, but Mumbai - the first day of the second Test between India and New Zealand, felt a thousand times removed from that day in London, and it had nothing to do with the cricket, which was compelling in its own way, with a dramatic mid-session Indian collapse followed by a punchy counterattack. But an air of desolation hung all around, the stands were sparsely populated, and the large press box, insulated from the sounds of cricket, seemed even emptier, with masks and distanced seating adding further layers of insularity.
The sterile joylessness (relative to previous experiences, of course) of the day, though, allowed for perspective, however tangential. The year gone by was one in which we learnt to live with a pandemic that has changed our lives for years to come. Alongside vaccines, there has been acceptance of new ways of life, and WFH has become a trending initialism.
But working from home is not an option for sportspeople, who must, sunshine or rain, travel to faraway lands to ply their trade in open fields, and because the stakes are so high and contact among players is essential and inevitable, they must live their life from bubble to bubble, their fishbowl existence made even more suffocating. And they must execute the rarest of skills, which require, apart from the skills themselves, peak physical and mental prowess. Doubt and anxiety, natural in these times, must be cast away or hidden, and there is no retreating to safe spaces. Read more on Espncricinfo |
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