England’s performance in the first Test was up there with one of their greatest wins overseas. To dominate India in their own backyard, a team who had lost just one of their last 35 home Tests prior to this one, is something special. The senior players in Joe Root and Jimmy Anderson led from the front, delivering near-perfect performances. Winning the toss and putting first-innings runs on the board was vital, something England have struggled with in the past, but they have now found stability in the top order and there was another dogged performance from Dom Sibley, who answered questions about his ability to play spin in Asia, alongside the batting masterclass from the captain.
While the batters set things up in the first innings, it was the enduring class of Jimmy Anderson in the second that sealed the deal, bowling not only one of the greatest overs Test cricket has seen, but also demonstrating age isn’t a barrier to his craft, reverse swinging the ball to pick up the two wickets that broke the middle order. Anderson deservedly owns the title of GOAT.
What made the performance more impressive for me, having experienced it for just a few weeks last summer, was that many of these players have been in biosecure bubbles for most of the last year. The way they have coped with those circumstances and that pressure has been phenomenal.
This week I started work on Channel 4’s coverage of the India series, and while observing Covid protocols and social distancing, we get to go home at the end of each day’s play. Last summer I was in a bio-bubble for three months while working on England’s series against West Indies and Pakistan. From the start it was pretty intense. The first thing was realising that the game’s financial security was at stake if any one of us tested positive, that a single Covid case could directly lead to job losses, both within the game and in the broadcast media, and impact on players’ health. I had that anxiety every time I did a Covid test, which was every few days. What if this is where the whole bubble collapses? What if I’m asymptomatic and have been passing it on? Add to that the fact that if you tested positive it could be your chances of working gone for the entire summer. It was a pressure that I think we all felt constantly.
Then you go into a very sanitised environment. We were expected to wear masks everywhere. We had to wear gloves to eat breakfast. Social distancing was maintained at all times, and the pleasure of being with other people, the social aspect, disappeared. After a while that starts to wear at the spirit. In a standard job you do your work and then you go home, but we were waking up and going to bed in the same environment. Every meal, every minute, there was no respite. It was so intense, and many of us found it tricky.
I remember speaking to a few players when cricket first restarted, and everyone was committed to just getting on with it. “We’re all in this together” was the philosophy. Everyone was going through the same thing, connected not just by the unusual circumstances but also by what cricket meant to us, and an appreciation of what cricket meant for the country at that time. But after a month and a half or so, I came to a point where I needed respite. The same conversations with the same people became strained, and I desperately needed to reconnect with the outside world. I am full of admiration for anyone who has managed to live in a biosecure bubble, as some players have, not just for a few weeks but for month after month.
International cricketers are well rewarded financially, and we expect them just to deliver, but some of them have made extreme sacrifices for the game this year. That’s the obvious financial sacrifice – England’s men’s team took 15% pay cuts in their last contracts – but also giving up time with their friends and loved ones. Some will have gone from what became a busy summer last year, matches against West Indies, Pakistan and Ireland, then to the IPL or the BBL, then Sri Lanka and on to India. It’s a huge amount of time in intense environments with constant testing, constant pressure to adhere to strict Covid protocols, and the pressure of performing.
The outside world still perceives everything athletes do as easy – you’re lucky, you’re living the dream – but from the inside it’s the complete reverse. There’s no job security: one injury might destroy your livelihood, one bad performance can lose your spot, there’s always someone who wants your place in the team. That is a big burden to live with. I’m really glad that players have opened up, from Jonathan Trott to Sarah Taylor and Kate Cross, and that they have felt supported to do so, and I think they have helped the conversation about the mental health of elite athletes to move on in the last decade.
Eoin Morgan spoke last autumn about the difficulty of life in bubbles, making it clear that players should feel free to leave to protect their mental health. After that Tom Banton and Tom Curran both pulled out of the Big Bash to have a bit of time away from the game, but Banton is 22 and Curran is 25, and I don’t think it was a coincidence that the players who chose to step away tended to be young, people who have time in their careers to make up for any impact their decisions might have. I don’t think that luxury is there for older players.
England’s victory in the first Test would have been magnificent at any time, but this year it was almost heroic. We should keep all of this in mind before we form judgments at the moment. During the pandemic many of us have found out, either from being affected by Covid or by the impact of lockdowns, what it’s like to go through bad times, and hopefully in future we will think about others in a more human way.
