Ashley Giles announces player guidelines for England cricket
Director of England cricket, Ashley Giles, announced that a pool of 30 players are being prepared for resumption of cricket. Starting Wednesday, the bowlers will commence their training with coaches in individual sessions. Meanwhile, the batsmen will enter the nets after two weeks. The ECB issued stern guidelines for players as the training is expected to resume in July. Here is more.
"At one venue guys may train individually but with the same coach - a single coach for four or five bowlers [for example]. But with social distancing they shouldn't be close enough to pass anything on. It's essential we stick to these guidelines." said Giles.
According to The Guardian, a "one skin per ball" policy will be followed during the sessions. The players will gather at one of the eleven county grounds at different intervals and undergo temperature checks, before training with a coach. The training shall be supervised by a physio. Also, the players will have to maintain a two-metre distance from the coach and other staff members.
The players will be given an individual box of balls. Only they must touch the box while training. The ball-centric guidelines relate to usage of saliva and body sweat (on the ball), which is still under review of International Cricket Council (ICC),
The coaches will be handed their own set of balls for throwdowns or use of bowling machine. They must wear a rubber glove on the spare hand. Furthermore, the batsmen have been told to kick or hit the ball back to the coach during the nets session. With no access of dressing room, the players will have to bring their own water bottles.
Although all cricket activities have been stalled in UK until July, Giles is hopeful of staging the rest of season. "Right now I am confident. We hope we don't take another dip, which would put all of us back," he stated. He added, "But If we continue on this trajectory, hopefully we will have the right conditions to play some Test cricket."
