Michael Atherton
Cricket Expert & Columnist
Michael Atherton: My sympathies are with cricket fans as negotiations over result of cancelled fifth England vs India Test continue
Lancashire and county game also face ramifications after fifth Test at Old Trafford is cancelled due to tourists not being able to field a team due to concerns over Covid-19; India players also concerned about their involvement in rescheduled Indian Premier League
Last Updated: 10/09/21 10:51am
It's a great sadness that COVID has hit the Indian camp and my initial sympathies are with the supporters and spectators.
So many people will have booked holiday time to watch this Test and so many will have spent money on travel and hotels, as well as a high price for a ticket.
The ECB has its own insurance scheme so the cost of the ticket will be refunded but the extra cost is unlikely to be.
No-one wanted this outcome and it's likely that there will be knock-on ramifications for the county game and Lancashire in particular.
Lancashire had a really tough pandemic - Emirates Old Trafford is one of the big grounds that has lots of banqueting and conference facilities. All events were cancelled in the year of COVID and they were looking at this Test match almost as a way of rebalancing the books.
So it's going to be a costly cancellation for them and they don't have a Test match next year either - just a couple of international T20s.
We were all looking forward to this Test at the end of an outstanding series.
It's surprising, really, that we've got so much cricket away given the coronavirus pandemic.
Amazingly, the whole international summer went ahead last year without any cancellations and the ECB was deeply grateful to sides like West Indies, Pakistan, Australia and Ireland who came here under those circumstances.
This year, rates are still high despite the vaccinations and with the lack of lockdowns, it's remarkable that so much cricket has got away without interference.
The real issue in the room is the rescheduled IPL, which was abandoned back in April and rescheduled for mid-September.
It's due to start four days after this Test match so the players are concerned about their involvement in that.
The BCCI is no doubt concerned about that tournament, which I think is worth about £360m to them.
That issue has always been hanging over this Test and when Ravi Shastri went down with a positive test last week, that then infiltrated the second physio who has been treating the likes of Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja.
The fear is that with the incubation period, there will be more COVID cases in the camp.
So you certainly can have sympathy with players who are undergoing cricket under all manner of restrictions - bubbles and quarantines.
There will be a lot of negotiations going on now behind the scenes because the first ECB statement that was put out said that India had forfeited the game.
A forfeiture would mean a 2-2 series result; the ECB quickly back-tracked within about 10 minutes to another statement which removed the forfeiture line.
Instead, it will be down to the ICC match referee to determine the outcome.
From Dubai, where the ICC set some ground rules, if it's a COVID-related cancellation there is room for it not to be a forfeiture. They will work on this over the next two or three days but I don't think forfeiture will be the end result.
Hanging over all of this is the relationship between England and India, which from an England perspective is the most critical one in the game and therefore they will be treading carefully.
England would have loved the chance to get this series back to 2-2 but they are not going to get that opportunity now.
India have looked a stronger side this summer, truth be told, and they wanted to finish the series on a high because no India side has won three Test matches in England before.
They wanted to win in England and Australia in the same year. Given India's historic difficulties winning away from home, that would have shed a new light on this team and Virat Kohli's captaincy.
