With the advent of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) sweeping the world, some cricket boards have taken the bold step to reintroduce the game under new restrictions with the West Indies and England christening the first international series since.
Following the conclusion of that series yesterday, West Indies captain Jason Holder deemed his experiences in the bio-secure venue as “mentally challenging.”
The captain was at the time speaking at the post-match conference as his side went from one up after the first Test to losing the next two matches and consequently the Wisden Trophy. Both losses were unavoidable despite a day in each Test being lost to rain.
“We’ve been kept indoors for the last two months. Yes, the guys haven’t seen a bit of real life for a bit but it is tough to constantly get up here and you open your curtains and see a cricket ground, you aren’t hopping on the bus as you normally would do and at least see a pedestrian or anyone outside of that,” Holder posited.
He continued, “We had a change in environment which we really enjoyed in Southampton but then to come back here in Manchester to see the same people in the same place, same rooms it’s been a bit difficult…. more or less challenging mentally for sure.
“It has been challenging mentally. I think a lot of our guys felt it and coming closer to home obviously gets a bit more difficult but more or less I think the guys did outstandingly well in terms of keeping their focus, on the last Test match we were probably outplayed and I think we had a lot of positives in the Test series whether wickets or runs and generally as a group we showed signs of improvement,” Holder stated.
“It could be this way for a little while so we’ve got to find ways to make it work, you know probably hope things could ease up throughout the world and guys could probably get out the hotel a bit more.”
According to Cricket West Indies Chief Executive Officer Johnny Grave, when the team returns to the Caribbean they will have about one week off before flying to Trinidad and Tobago where they will go into quarantine before the start of the Caribbean Premier League which will also be played behind closed doors.
