Pakistan’s all-format captain, Babar Azam, has urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to revise its COVID-19 policy, claiming that the situation has returned to “normal” around the world.
Speaking in an interview, the 27-year-old cricketer said, “I am happy that things are returning to normal. We had been facing several challenges due to COVID-19.”
Cricketers across the globe have been in a challenging situation since the outbreak of COVID-19 as they spend months in bio-bubbles. In recent times, many players have skipped franchise cricket due to fatigue.
While emphasizing the need to give some relief to the players, Babar said, “We should analyze how did the players spend time during the pandemic and we should now plan for the time ahead.”
Last month, the Pakistan Cricket Board had announced to adopt a corona-free policy for future home matches, starting from the series against the West Indies.
Babar further added that every country was facing a different challenge, and they implemented different policies to deal with the pandemic and cricketers had to follow the SOPs.
“We spent 14 days in quarantine in New Zealand, while West Indies introduced a 7-day obligatory quarantine and England enforced a 5-day isolation period,” the skipper added.
Babar, who will captain Pakistan in the upcoming series against the West Indies, went on to say that bowlers were the most affected by the pandemic because they were not allowed to apply saliva to the ball to shine it.
Babar stated that the ICC should look into the matter because things are returning to normal and the number of cases in the world has decreased significantly.
