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Chris Woakes says England cricketers would be open to playing behind closed doors in an attempt to get the international game back up and running after the Covid-19 outbreak, but acknowledges that his own focus should be on the test squads. and ODI. T20 if the plan to play different formats at the same time comes to fruition.
Woakes played an integral role in England’s World Cup victory last summer, producing a Player of the Match performance in the semi-final victory against Australia, and then impressed in the harsh test conditions abroad against New Zealand. and South Africa. He claimed seven wickets at 25.71 in his two appearances, a figure that could have been higher had he not succumbed to the mysterious virus that swept through the squad at Christmas.
However, he played the last of his eight T20Is in November 2015, and he knows it would require a host of events for him to enter England’s plans for the T20 World Cup in Australia later in the year, a point he himself recognized. before the pandemic when he pulled out of his IPL deal with Delhi Capitals to rest before England’s scheduled test series against the West Indies and Pakistan.
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“I want to play for England as long as possible but, at the moment, it doesn’t look like I’m going to play T20 cricket unless something really drastic happens in terms of injuries,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to play all three formats for England, but if the games are going to be very close, obviously I would rather be on the red ball side and the ODI, rather than the T20s.”
Whatever form England’s summer is capable of taking, Woakes acknowledges that there will have to be sacrifices along the way, including the need for matches to be played in a bio-secure environment, potentially in a limited number of venues like Old Trafford and the Ageas Bowl, which has on-site hotels with enough capacity to house teams, officials and broadcasters.
“It is not something that we have discussed in depth, but I am sure that, as players, we could have our heads playing without any fans present, because there seems to be a high possibility of that happening,” says Woakes. said. “I think we would be happy to go back to some form of normalcy, play cricket, give the public something to watch, and hopefully entertain some people who are lacking in cricket.”
In terms of the squad’s interactions during that match, Woakes admitted that the need to maintain social detachment in a team environment would be “strange,” but said they had already found a degree of that in the first few weeks of their aborted tour of Sri Lanka in March.
“Just leaving [lockdown] it will feel a little strange every time that happens, “he said.” You can hardly see the world being the same again. But you saw in Sri Lanka, we were doing everything possible not to make contact with each other, and not to shake hands and hit each other with fists and the like, but it was easy enough to forget and accidentally do something that you told him same that they were not going to do.
“So in terms of the normal interaction of a dressing room, with people very close to each other, and community showers, and all those kinds of things, they will have to be discussed before we can get back to normal. And there are also many people with young families No one knows how that would work.
“But after what the world has been through, if the players have to be quarantined for a period of time, I think they would be happy, although it depends on how long. If they said it would be for three months.” I think the players might not be very interested, but if it was a 3-4 week window, I think the boys would be open to doing it without too much trouble.
“We just have to wait and see and sit down and trust the advice of the experts, because I imagine they will not allow the teams and the sport to move on unless it is really safe to do so.” so.”
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Ultimately, athletes are well aware of the need to maximize their career peak opportunities, and Woakes is no exception at the age of 31, especially after the year he enjoyed in 2019.
“I still feel like I’m young enough at 31,” he said. “I have had weird injuries here and there, but most fast bowlers do, and I feel like my body is in as good a place as it has been for a few years. I have not missed any games due to injury from quite a while ago, which is really nice.
“I’ve been doing some difficult yards off the field to try to make sure that is the case, but the immediate goal for me is to try to stay on the team because the competition is high. There are a lot of fast players playing. And I just want to be part of that team in the future. “
Ahead of the winter tours, Woakes might have feared for his long-term future in the test squad, given that his overseas record for England was far from impressive: just 18 wickets at 61.77 in 12 games. However, his Kookaburra ball effectiveness came in leaps and bounds thanks to his work with new head coach Chris Silverwood and, in New Zealand, Darren Gough, who joined the team as a consultant before the Tests.
“I am the first to admit that my visitor record has not been as good as my home,” Woakes said. “But this winter was a breakthrough for me. I think in the past I was probably a little bit confident and gawked a bit, whereas actually with a Kookaburra you have to give it a chance to move sideways and try to drive it to that fuller length a little bit stronger. I also had a chance to play with a new ball, which may also help.
“Gough, as you can imagine, was quite light-hearted, but it was a breath of fresh air in the locker room. He wasn’t overly confident in the technical side of things, he was definitely more tactical, and drilled. I realized there could be two players from different bowling and he had to play a bowl further from home.
“You have to attack while the Kookaburra is in its newest state,” he added. “I was probably a little unsure about my lengths and looking to sit tight instead of having that risk-reward mindset. Cricket is a simple game where you’ve still tried to win as many times as possible, but it’s about being precise and aggressive at the same time. “
