Yorkshire’s need for cricket never greater as coronavirus casts dark cloud

How could it be otherwise?

The England and Wales Cricket Board has recommended that all recreational cricket be suspended with immediate effect – including any training and pre-season friendlies – and is expected to update shortly on the professional game.

Britain is in a state of quasi-shutdown and, with matters not expected to reach their nadir for another three months, perhaps the best-case scenario is that county cricket gets going sometime in June/July and limps through to an extended finish in October.

In reality, though, cricket – just like every other glorious diversion – is at the whim of this pernicious virus and hardly the most pressing national concern.

At first, some had innocently joked what a hoot it would be if a potentially truncated county campaign had led to the cancellation of the near universally derided 100-ball tournament.

That was before the severity of this crisis became clear, however, and the world grappled with its greatest medical emergency since the Spanish Flu of 1918.

A word, in passing, on that dreadful pandemic: up to 100 million people died on top of the Great War, a combination of misery almost beyond comprehension that perhaps puts the present predicament, frightening as it is, into hopefully a bit more palatable perspective.

Having derided The Hundred for what it is, a shameless, brazen attempt to make as much money as possible at the expense of what might be called “proper cricket”, the prevailing crisis has ironically left those of us against the concept only too aware of the now pressing need for a successful launch event this summer, in addition to a lucrative T20 Blast.

Yorkshire, alone, stand to make around £2m this season from their involvement in The Hundred as one of the eight hosting counties, with the Northern Superchargers franchise based at Emerald Headingley.

The Blast, meanwhile, is a great money-spinner for all clubs and especially important in these financially exacting times.

As Mark Arthur, the Yorkshire chief executive and as much of a “proper cricket” enthusiast as one would find has said, pragmatism is paramount and clubs – many struggling – must 
increasingly prioritise income along with the medium/long-term existence of the professional game.

Ergo, as all counties await –hopefully by the end of the week – some possible rescheduling thoughts/clarity from the ECB, the nub of the matter is this: clubs, by hook or by crook, have to navigate their way through this summer, first and foremost, and fight to keep their heads above water before we can all return to our ideological principles.

As such, and as much as it pains me to say it, the County Championship might need to be sacrificed this season – unless it can be played behind closed doors from its scheduled starting point next month, which seems incredibly unlikely, or else cut back in size pending, perhaps, a midsummer commencement if the national situation improves, which is clearly up in the air.

The 50-over Cup is an obvious candidate for cancellation; it had already been reduced to a 
sideshow by the ECB’s scheduling of it alongside The Hundred in any event, so a suspension is unlikely to be deeply lamented at Lord’s.

Test cricket is similarly in jeopardy, along with England’s white-ball fixtures – two of them at Headingley in the form of T20s against Australia and Pakistan – and the ECB’s advice concerning the recreational game follows the prevailing government advice/social distancing stipulations.

If there are any silver linings, it can only be said that they are presently obscured by the darkest blanket of cloud to have engulfed the sport since wartime.

But wait.

There is, perhaps, one consoling contemplation.

Imagine, whether we get on to the field this year or next, the great roar that will invariably go up at county grounds all across the land when the first balls are sent down not so much in anger as in relief and gratitude when the great game resumes.

Even the tiredest of tired eyes, worn down by the way that cricket has been systematically reduced to the lowest common denominator, can only twinkle at that heart-warming thought.

Cricket, in the final analysis, is, of course, another glorious 
diversion, a transparent triviality when set against the stark 
business of life and death that presently confronts humanity in a way that could never 
have been imagined a few weeks ago.

But if cricket matters anywhere, it is here in Yorkshire, and how cruel it is that we need that great diversion of leather and willow now more than ever.

May its sights and sounds soon enrich us again.