Following the utterly tragic passing of Phillip Hughes last week, the cricketing world has been united in their outpouring of grief, and support for Hughes’ Australian teammates who, understandably, are struggling.
On the cusp of the Australian home international cricket season, their scheduled opponents for the traditional series of test matches in India are currently in the country in preparation for the series to begin. Though traditionally, being the country with the largest following and the most financial clout, the Board of Control for Cricket in India – the nation’s governing body for the sport – are notoriously somewhat fickle to deal with, all administrative parties have shown an unprecedented unified front in agreeing that player welfare is the absolute priority during this difficult period.
To that end, both Cricket Australia and the BCCI have agreed that the first test match, due to begin in Brisbane this Thursday, should not begin as scheduled; the Australian simply would not have had adequate time to mentally prepare for the contest with the original start time being 24 hours removed from Hughes’ funeral on Wednesday.
But now the issue of rescheduling the match becomes a very real concern. Whilst it’s possible that the start of the game will only be delayed by about a day or two, it appears increasingly unlikely that play will commence this week.
The schedule for the summer of cricket is so tightly packed that finding a new slot for a five day game would also require considerations for other forms of the game, both international and domestic.
One of the more likely scenarios involves postponing the game until the new year, which would make the scheduled test in Hughes’ adopted home of Adelaide the first test of the series, with that game scheduled to begin on December 12th. This would seemingly give the Australian team a few days to breathe and regroup, before getting in adequate time to train and prepare for the game. It would also allow team captain Michael Clarke time to recover from a much-discussed hamstring injury and take his place on the field for the first game since Hughes’ passing.
But finding an adequate five day slot for a test match at short notice is problematic, and would likely require the rescheduling of other games in order to accommodate it – games like a scheduled International ODI against India in Melbourne on January 16th, and a planned Big Bash League game between the Brisbane Heat and the Sydney Sixers scheduled for the ‘Gabba on January 11th, meaning that broadcaster Channel Ten has to enter into negotiations as well.
But owing to the wholly unique and tragic circumstances, officials expect this particular scheduling anomaly to be resolved with relative ease.
The primary goal here is, and should be, finding a solution that best caters to the welfare of the players as they prepare to say goodbye to their great mate.
And that, thankfully, is a goal that’s just about guaranteed to be achieved.
Photo: Gareth Copley via Getty Images.
via SMH.
