Former Australia batsman Dean Jones is highly concerned about the organization of the T20 World Cup 2020 in Oct-Nov and the state of the Cricket Australia overall, as the country battles the Coronavirus pandemic.
He feels there will be no crowd in stadiums in Australia for good eight months or so. He felt that the financial problems of the Cricket Australia will deepen further if the country doesn’t see any cricket sooner. Kevin Roberts was recently quoted as saying that the revenue earned from ticket sales for a home international season is around 40-50 million Australian dollars, depending on the season.
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He felt more concerned about the T20 World Cup 2020 and said, "I'm still concerned about cricket in Australia. I'm worried about the T20 World Cup. I think we can get India to come across and play a Test series maybe in December-January (2020-21), but I'm worried about the World Cup."
India’s tour to Australia at the end of 2020 could be worth about 250-300 million Australian dollars and could solve a lot of problems, as per Test captain Tim Paine.
Jones suggested adopting the ‘pod’ system which will be used in Baseball in America and Australian Rules football in Australia. “We look like we are going to put teams into pods or hubs. So all the teams, all the administrators, all the officials will stay in the hotels in this pod or hub. No one is allowed to go in the pod, no one is allowed to go out of this pod. So, they are in complete isolation. They hop on a bus and they go straight to the ground, play the game and come straight back to their pod. That's the only way sports can happen,” Jones mentioned.
"If you have a squad and if they are not allowed out of their rooms - apart from being on the bus and apart from going to the ground and playing the match, I don't think they need to be segregated. Sure they will have to pass tests before they go into these pods. Then, you should be able to control the pods,” he added.
(Times of India inputs)
