IT'S A SUMMER TO REMEMBER STILL

For its similarity to anything resembling normal Test cricket, England’s 2020 program may as well have been played on the moon. There were bio-secure bubbles, saliva-free zones and such a lack of atmosphere that you would not have been surprised to see the players floating around in slow motion like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

- PETER HAYTER

While the pictures showed vast expanses of bum-free seats, for the benefit of the TV audience something called the Lord’s hum played on, and on and on, via a continuous loop, punctuated only by a single voice calling out forlornly “Root…Rooot…” every 93.49 seconds (I timed it so you wouldn’t have to).

And there were other reasons, bad light preventing play while the floodlights were on, for example, why the experience was so other-worldly for armchair viewers and listeners, i.e. most of us.

Yet among the cosmically confusing, the different and the downright bizarre, there were moments to cherish and a review of those confirm that while last summer was unforgettable for England supporters, this one may live just as long in the memory.

The very fact that teams from West Indies and Pakistan were prepared to travel here at all is as worthy of the highest praise and gratitude as the efforts of the England and Wales Cricket Board in enabling the international sport to be staged at all and pleas from both nations for England to repay the favor as soon as practically possible should not be ignored (see Lavalette, page 27).

The tone was set on day one at Hampshire’s Ageas Bowl, first when Joe Root and West Indies captain Jason Holder led their players in taking the knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and then, during a delay for rain in the first Test against West Indies at the Ageas Bowl, when Sky TV broadcast interviews with Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford-Brent which deserved the huge audience they reached and touched deeply.

In its way, another interview was just as striking.