(UTV | Colombo) – Daniel Gidney, chief executive of Lancashire Cricket Club, is in no doubt of the number of challenges they face. “People use the word unprecedented but we are in genuinely uncharted waters for sports clubs and cricket clubs in particular where you don’t have a season starting as it normally would,” he said.
County cricket must wait until the government identifies a clear path out of lockdown before it can plan when to start its season.
The domestic and international calendar is postponed until at least 1 July because of the coronavirus pandemic while the inaugural season of The Hundred has already been delayed until next year.
Gidney says safety must be guaranteed, above anything else, before cricket can resume and behind closed doors initially.
“Testing has to be front and centre of any strategy,” he told BBC Sport.
“Deaths are still high and it’s difficult to have the conversation around sport resuming at a time when we still don’t have a clear path out of lockdown.
“We have to work very, very closely with the government’s medical team and come up with a plan that can be very clearly and categorically safe for elite athletes, backroom staff and broadcasters.”
Medical representatives from cricket were involved in the first cross-sport meeting with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Friday where protocols for the potential resumption of sport were discussed.
But Gidney says there is still much more clarity and detail required and a staged return to action must be followed.
“One of the priorities has to be elite athletes returning to training,” he said.
“For that to happen, you will need social distancing guidance to be relaxed slightly. I think we need to be in a position as a country where everybody is tested who needs to be tested.
“That will be the absolute central point to the ability to open some sport behind closed doors, sooner rather than later.”