A Round-Up Of How The Culture Of Cricket Responds To The COVID 19 Pandemic:
As part of the newly created Indian Cricketers’ Association’s financial assistance program during the Covid-19 crisis, a total of 57 former players, including six women and a blind cricketer, and the widows of three former players, received between INR 60,000 (US$ 800 approx.) and INR 1 lakh ($1300 approx.) — a total of Rs 78 lakh ($102,300 approx.)
“It’s a huge move, particularly to support Mr. Shekar Naik, the former Indian blind team captain because that wasn’t in our rules and regulations, but we thought that since the Indian government honored him and the BCCI honored him, why shouldn’t we,” Ashok Malhotra, the association ‘s president, went to a leading sports website. Naik has led India to victories for the blind in the 2012 T20 World Cup and the blind in the 2014 World Cup.
Malhotra has also reported that many former players, including Dilip Vengsarkar, Arun Lal and Balwinder Singh Sandhu, have made donations to support their needy colleagues. “Several other cricketers are coming forward, some of them very famous, with large and small amounts,” Malhotra said. “We have money to support more people, and that is what we plan to do.”
According to Malhotra, 2800 former players have signed up with the association so far, and “most of them have donated” the minimum and maximum donation amounts between Rs 1000 ($13 approx.) and Rs 5 lakh ($6600 approx.)
Provisional Cricket Ireland Approval To Commence Club Training:
Cricket Ireland has been given conditional approval for club cricket by sports and health authorities to push one step closer to restricted play in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Nevertheless, restarting club-level operation depends on when, according to a statement, the Irish government and the Northern Ireland executive schedule their next step of reopening, and the clubs take pre-opening compliance steps for the protocol. The board had made its submission to both the governments on May 22 seeking approval to restart activity.
“It ensures that Provincial Unions and clubs will effectively advance their Covid-19 safety planning work in anticipation of the progress of each government towards reopening the respective road maps to Phase 2 / Step 2,” said a board statement.
In the first step, Cricket Ireland will make available to all clubs around the country “knowledge packets” and tools beginning next week, which will provide checklists and guidance on training activities that conform with social distance and safety protocols. “From the outset, our priority was to adopt a safety-first approach to ensure the health of players, coaches, volunteers, and families,” said Warren Deutrom, Cricket Ireland CEO.
“With this in mind, it is important to remind our club and grassroots family that the rule of the 20 km radius still applies to club cricketers and that the ability to restart training depends on the protocol being able to comply. We fully agree that it does not feel natural and there will be more work than usual on enforcing and tracking hygiene procedures and social distancing properly, but we are confident that everyone understands their role in managing the spread of the virus and protecting the vulnerable within our culture.
“All specifics will certainly still be to be resolved during implementation, but we will provide advice on issues when they arise. If we work together to follow these requirements, then we can start looking at a potential resumption of competitive matches later on in the road map-a possibility that looked very remote to many only a few weeks ago.
