Ahead of World Mental Health Day, the Chief Executive of England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has said that the mental health of the cricketers is their “first priority”. Tom Harrison’s statements arrive as the ECB declared that it had lost over £100 million in revenue in the aftermath of the coronavirus and weeks after the Board announced that it had to axe 62 jobs. The coronavirus pandemic had initially threatened to wipe out the entire 2020 campaign but a full men's international programme went ahead alongside shortened county and women's calendars.
Discussing the after-shocks of coronavirus on international cricket in an end of the season briefing on Monday 5th October, Tom Morrison said, "The ECB has lost more than £100m of revenue and 800 days of live spectators in stadia. The consequences of that are now being felt by people across the game who are losing livelihoods and are going through some very, very difficult moments in their lives. Right now, at the ECB we are going through the painful process of becoming a smaller organisation coming out of this summer.
“We are working to ensure the business of international cricket keeps going. But the Bangladesh tour to Sri Lanka is an understandable situation for the Bangladeshi team; two weeks of quarantine is not an easy thing to agree to for players and I don’t think we would agree to that either. We will not sign off on plans we’re not comfortable with, in terms of our No 1 priority: the health and wellbeing of players and staff on these tours.”
The Board also admitted that there is less clarity as regards to the men’s tours to Sri Lanka and India slated to commence January next year, especially with the exponential increase in the number of coronavirus cases in India recently. The ECB spent around £1m on Covid-19 testing alone this year and was able to avoid the projected financial loss of £380 million. Besides close co-operation with the government and support rendered from broadcasters, the ECB has assured that they had avoided the worst for the year. But, ahead of a potential second wave and with increasing cases of coronavirus in the UK, Harrison has admitted that he was drawing up contingency plans for similar financial pain next year.
In the meantime, players like Stuart Broad have already announced that they are ready to co-operate with the ECB and take pay cuts in an attempt to save livelihoods of other essential staff.
