Please allow me a moment. For the first time in thirteen long weeks, I am sat at my desk about to write about cricket from the previous week. It has been thirteen long weeks since I last did that. Weeks filled with worry and concern. Unnatural weeks. I am a teacher and have spent the last weeks working from home (regardless of what the Daily Mail might tell you). On top of this I am expecting my first child towards the end of next month. For many first-time parents this is an unnatural time anyway but when you add the removal of sport it seemed even more unnatural. Sport is a triviality but in these stressful times it is the frivolous nature of sport that allows us to lose ourselves in it for 90 minutes, a day or a weekend.
The most reassuring thing about sport is it's ever present nature . If it isn't the cricket at Lord's , it would have been the football in Bilbao or the golf in America that would take you into the early hours. All those sporting fixtures should of been played out today - only one is. All would have been a respite. A moment to dip in, zone out and lose yourself. Yet now, when we needed that respite the most, it seemed like the cruellest twist of fate that it was removed from us.
As the sensible amongst us are beginning to eke our way out of lockdown, sport is beginning to inch it's way back into our day to day life. Starting with the most important and the most economically suitable, we are beginning to see the games we love return . This week we saw our first player from the List don their whites. When I went to put his score on my spreadsheet - which I still fill out on paper like a Luddite - I left a crosschecked square to mark the thirteen weeks since the cessation of cricket. On inputting the Week 26 score I was annoyed to find that it meant that the spreadsheet was now askew and didn't line up. But perhaps that is fitting. A dark line etched on our society - both socially and sportingly - that means that nothing will quite line up again.
The game that we love will not be the same in the short term and, in many cases, it will struggle to be the same in the long term. The West Indies series will, at times, seem anodyne and nothing like the Summertime spectacle that we know England home games to be. Things that wouldn't have been huge considerations 6 months ago need to be considered. No crowd, new rules, the England captain missing from duty for two weeks due to the birth of his child are all very modern concerns. These minor inconveniences will be insignificant compared to the seismic effect on cricket clubs up and down the land. Many of these village clubs, who struggle year on year, will be plunged into further debt or dissolved.
Even to those for whom cricket is important, it has, at times, seemed insignificant over the last three months. As we prepare to welcome some of it back, as we lust after the battles between bat and ball and lose ourselves in the finites of techniques, statistics and record, we must also pause to consider the sacrifices that have been made. In the most macrocosmic scale, we need to spare a thought to those who have lost their lives or the lives of loved ones. We must also never forget those who have risked their lives to help. Cricket has played a small part in this. Kohli used his immense social media pull to implore the people of India to abide by the lockdown whilst Heather Knight and Amir Virdi put themselves in the front line. Our great game has remained a great game even when it wasn't played.
Credit also needs to be given to the West Indies and Pakistan teams for honouring their commitments and coming to play this Summer. Much has been made of the advance payments to West Indies Cricket and the PCB - which many have described as a pay off or bribe. As far as I can see, we have two squads of players who could have said no, but said yes. That has to be applauded. It means we will see Babar Azam, Jason Holder, Joe Root and Ben Stokes scoring points again - and there were times when that looked like it wouldn't happen. As for the other 17 players on the list, we will have to see. But cricket is back. And don't you love to see it!
Another great thing about this game of ours, and by association our List, is that it can sometimes take the mick. Sport is all about anticipation - and when that anticipation is built up, the climax is usually higher. Ask Sting. Think of big crickets big cathartic moments. Think Ben Stokes at the World Cup last year. Think about Middlesex's win in 2016. Think about the 2005 Ashes. But there are also the damp squibs. In the first week with any cricket to speak of, we have the dampest of damp squibs. The first post-Lockdown score on the board turns out to be the greatest biggest zero you could imagine. It was all set up for Jason Holder. He scored a huge 233 points in the last active game pre-Lockdown as Barbados beat Guyana. There would have been a great cyclical nature for him to have got even 50 points. But it was not to be. International cricket's Mr Nice Guy is suffering with an ankle injury so protected himself by not bowling in the cobbled together WI Holder XI v WI Brathwaite XI. He did bat. For one ball where he got a golden duck as part of a bravo display from Raymon Reifer. So there we have it. Our first score in 13 weeks is 0 but....you know what! I'll take it.
