DUBAI Cricket chiefs will this week discuss the future of some of the sport’s biggest events as they try to find a way through the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Thursday’s conference call will bring together the chief executives of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC’s) 12 full member nations and three associate representatives. The start of the English season and the lucrative Twenty20 Indian Premier League (IPL) have both been delayed by Covid-19. England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Tom Harrison has warned an entire season without cricket would cost the game there more than £300 million ($373 million) while Cricket Australia (CA) have laid off staff. South Africa’s limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka in June became the latest series to be postponed on Monday. The virus could also threaten this year’s T20 World Cup in Australia, meant to start on October 18. And next year’s inaugural World Test Championship final at Lord’s may have to be delayed if countries are unable to play their scheduled qualifying matches. ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney said the meeting would be the first step in a “collective process”. “We need to share knowledge and start to build a deep understanding of what it will take to resume international cricket,” he said. “Countries will start to reopen at different stages and in different ways and we will need to respect that and have a holistic view of this to enable us to take well-informed decisions that mitigate the various risks as much as possible.”Former Pakistan middle-order batsman Mohammad Yousaf believes that the current Indian batsmen should not be compared with past greats. While talking during a show, on a local news channel, the Pakistan batting great heaped praise on India’s legendary former batsmen. “In the past, teams, such as India, Australia and South Africa, had 3-4 quality players in the side. India, for example, had players like [Rahul] Dravid, Sachin [Tendulkar], [Virender] Sehwag, [Sourav] Ganguly, [VVS] Laxman and Yuvraj Singh. These six batsmen were playing in a single team. The current Indian team does not have such batsmen. You can’t compare the current players [such as Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma] with the class of Sachin and Dravid,” said Yousaf. Although, Yousaf did say that Indian skipper Virat Kohli was the best batsman in the world, at the moment, while also admiring Pakistan’s prolific batsman Babar Azam’s career trajectory. “There is no doubt that Virat Kohli is the number one player in the world but if Babar Azam continues to improve, he will also go on to become the best player in the world,” he said. “I had my reservations, about his [Babar] performance in Test cricket, before the Australia tour. but he did really well there and is now scoring hundreds regularly in the longest format of the game.” Yousuf played 90 Tests, 288 ODIs and three Tw enty20 internationals (T20Is), in which he accumulated 7530, 9720, and 50 runs, respectively. The right-hander notched up 39 hundreds and 97 half-centuries during his illustrious career. Meanwhile, ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney said the meeting would be the first step in a “collective process”. “We need to share knowledge and start to build a deep understanding of what it will take to resume international cricket,” he said. “Countries will start to reopen at different stages and in different ways and we will need to respect that and have a holistic view of this to enable us to take well-informed decisions that mitigate the various risks as much as possible.”—Agencies
