South Africa to visit Pakistan for 2 Tests and 3 T20Is starting January 26.
Players have to always deal with several challenges considering the tight international schedule and in this COVID-19 era, they have been facing more difficult psychological challenges and troubles with living in a bio-secure environment, something that Quinton de Kock finds “unsettling”.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, cricket might have been started on a full song but it has brought a lot of limitations on movement and restrictions, as the players have to play, train, and live in a bio-secure environment and aren’t allowed to go outside.
Quinton De Kock admitted that it is really a challenging task to live in such an environment where the players and other staff have to stay inside hotels for long periods of time.
Questioning the sustainability of ‘bubble’ life, the Proteas star has described playing cricket amid the pandemic as “unsettling” as they are set to again enter a bio-secure environment for the Pakistan series after the recent home series against Sri Lanka.
De Kock, who has had a long ‘bubble life’ since IPL 2020, said there is a lot of nerves and mixed feelings about the upcoming tour of Pakistan, leaving on January 15 due to the bio-secure environment.
After the end of the Sri Lanka Tests, De Kock said: “There is a lot of nerves that go around when it comes to the bubble - lots of small things get into your mind; things that you're not used to in life. One day we could be living kind of normal and the next you're in lockdown. Where do we go from there?”
He further added, “We're stuck in a bubble, and we could be stuck in a lockdown in someplace for a certain period of time, which is the worst-case scenario. But, like a normal person, that's the way you think about things. Bubbles just make tours longer because of the quarantine period.
You stay in your room for a certain amount of time. You get out when we are declared safe. It's very unsettling. I don't know how long it can last. But, for now, you try and deal with it in the best way possible.”
There would only be a short break between the Pakistan tour and a home series against Australia scheduled in February-March and De Kock said: “We’ll probably only be home for about two weeks in the next three months, which is quite a challenge.”
He signed off by saying about the Pakistan tour: “I'm excited to get there and play cricket. It's a new challenge. But the rest of it, the off-the-field stuff, is another sort of challenge. The lockdown is going to be the hardest challenge that we’re going to have.”
(With AFP Inputs)