“There can be no summer in this land without cricket,” wrote Neville Cardus, the long-time Guardian cricket – and indeed classical music – correspondent. So far this summer we are having to test his hypothesis. In the most gorgeous weather imaginable, bats have remained stowed, wickets uncut, fields empty of fun and flowing strokes. At the beginning of July, all being well, we will finally get some cricket – Test matches between England and the West Indies in Manchester and Southampton, three in three weeks (an absurd schedule but these are strange times), played in “biosecure bubbles”. It will have nothing of the rhythm of a proper Test series; there will be no crowd; players might struggle for motivation in empty, noiseless bowls; Cardus would probably give it short shrift. But to cricket lovers starved of any games this season, it will be something on which to feast after almost three months of lockdown.
The Premier League will return this week and the Championship a few days later. Diehards will welcome football’s comeback – how hollow Saturday afternoons have been without arguments over VAR – but again it will be TV-only as spectators will not be permitted. There may nonetheless be some big-match atmosphere as Sky is promising “team-specific” crowd noise. Whether clubs will also employ cardboard cutouts in the stands remains to be seen.
Boris Johnson will be pleased that some professional sport is back as a symbol of normality returning, but no one has any illusions that this is about anything other than money. The big clubs have to resume to fulfil their television contracts; smaller clubs and the lower-profile women’s game have no such financial drivers. Football in Scotland has been abandoned, and England’s Leagues One and Two voted to end their seasons, with some clubs bitterly disappointed. The English FA appears to have agonised far less over the women’s game. The Women’s Super League title was handed to Chelsea with precious little fanfare. It may be reasonable to measure the relative importance of the men’s game by its much bigger audience share, but the treatment of women’s football as a near-irrelevance undermines the welcome recent progress.
Horse racing is already back and Royal Ascot will occupy its scheduled slot this week, though with a marked absence of royals. Presumably trainers will not feel obliged to wear their usual top hats, opting for sleek face masks instead, but the racing will be as top-notch as ever. The Derby will follow hard on Ascot’s heels, leaving racing aficionados perhaps the best served of all our sporting tribes. By contrast Wimbledon and the Open golf championship have bitten the dust, and rugby – because it is the most intense contact sport of all – is unlikely to be back before August.
Indeed, for rugby union the pandemic has triggered almost existential self-doubt, and there are suggestions – loathed by traditionalists – that it should become a summer sport. Not just this year, of necessity, but always. As in every aspect of our lives, the coronavirus crisis has posed profound questions for sport. Football has been exposed as divided and dangerously close to the edge financially; rugby is a sport in crisis; and cricket’s great battle over the Hundred has merely been deferred until 2021. Most recreational sport, the base of the pyramid, remains stymied. This has had profound implications for child obesity and wider wellbeing. Let’s celebrate the return of elite televised sport, especially with the occasional live Premier League match on free-to-air TV for the first time ever and Test cricket highlights returning to the BBC after 20 years. But don’t confuse the icing on the cake with the cake itself.
