Cricket Australia CEO Kevin Roberts cautious but optimistic

There was much delight for cricket fans to see the return of the game we all love, as Cricket Australia announced their schedule for the 2020-2021 home season. However, Cricket Australia CEO Kevin Roberts is fully aware of the challenges that face them as they prepare to play host when cricket resumes after the forced exile. 

"It could be everything from the season delivered in full to significant issues with bringing teams in. We're very optimistic that we'll be able to stage the Indian men's tours and the other inbound tours for the season. We're realistic enough to know they will look very different to a normal summer," he said before adding, "We're optimistic that we will withstand this situation and we're hopeful we can deliver the season looking very similar to the schedule we've just released.”

Roberts also said that Cricket Australia were looking at various options to ensure that cricket takes centerstage in the packed Australian summer. "We are exploring all options from chartered flights in from other countries through to creating biosecurity bubbles in different venues and it may well be as much as we've released the schedule and we have for example four Indian Tests scheduled for four states, that assumes that state borders are open to domestic travel. It may be that circumstances dictate that when the time comes maybe we can use only one or two venues. We don't know any of that yet," he said.

Kevin Roberts also reiterated the tough position ICC is currently in with multiple tournaments over the subsequent years being disrupted starting with this year’s ICC World T20. "There are implications for ICC events over a number of years. A lot of complexity for the ICC to deal with. They need to be thinking about when to stage the men's T20 World Cup that's planned for Australia. There's another one planned in India a year later and then in 2023, there's the men's cricket World Cup (50-overs) for India as well. And not to forget on the women's side of the ledger, you've got the cricket World Cup in NZ early next year. The ICC is juggling a lot of balls there," he elaborated.

Roberts acknowledged the financial beating the board will have to endure during the time of a global crisis. "The economic pain of the situation as we've heard from so many experts will be ongoing. And, so we are focused on delivering the best season possible noting that the likelihood of significant crowds is very slim. Ordinarily, that'll deliver well over 50 million dollars revenue to CA. It's likely that our biosecurity measures that we need to put into place to deliver our season will cost in the order of 10 million dollars. So, this is by no means an ordinary season in terms of the financial impact on Australian cricket," said Roberts.

The Indian cricket team’s tour of Australia is all set to headline the season for Cricket Australia, but there has been some disgruntlement over the WACA in Perth not playing host to the Indians. To this end, Roberts clarified "We empathise with the disappointment in Perth but at the same time, it's a historic moment to host Afghanistan for their first-ever Test in Australia. If Perth receives the India Test next year it would mean they would host two England Tests and two India Tests over this eight-year cycle - a total of four against England and India - whereas Brisbane would have only hosted two. That would have created an imbalance over the cycle of the FTP and in the national interest in ensuring we take high-profile Test matches to cricket fans in Queensland it was a more well-balanced solution, assuming we can have full crowds in place," again revealing that all the planning that CA are involved in now comes with a 'subject to change' disclaimer.

[Cricbuzz inputs]