Biosecurity at the ICC Men’s T20WC 2022
On international Women’s Day, 8th March 2020, Australia hosted the Women’s T20 World Cup final in front of a record breaking 86,174 fans at the MCG. Less than two weeks later, the world changed as we knew it. A global pandemic was declared by the WHO, borders closed, lockdowns enforced and organised sport, from community to international, came to an overnight halt.
It took many months but as time progressed, quarantines, bubbles and protocols allowed a sanitised and processed driven return to cricket. It was different, it was challenging and came with personal and financial costs but it was necessary to allow sport to survive through these unprecedented circumstances.
The Men’s T20 World Cup in October 2022, at the very same venue where COVID first became a reality for Cricket, marked a shift in time and gradual transition back to life like it was ‘before’ the virus. Government mandated border restrictions, vaccination requirements and isolation ceased to exist in Australia. We were able to cautiously enter a new era of living with the virus, enabling the sport to return to centre stage.
Strong leadership was required to enable a safe environment for players and officials with the emphasis placed on teams to manage and minimise their individual risk while maintaining a focus on performance. The ICC Board was instrumental in mandating doctors travel with all Member Boards for the first time. This not only enabled teams to better manage illness, isolation and infection risk but also provided a superior quality of medical care for players; improving performance, availability, and safety across all facets of athlete care.
The aim of COVID management was not to eliminate cases but rather to minimise risk of introduction to a team environment and where there was a case, minimise internal spread. Time was spent with team doctors in the lead up and during the event to educate, inform and support them in decision making so they could lead this within their teams, ensuring trust from players and early reporting of illness. The emphasis continued to be placed on the messaging that contracting COVID will have an impact on your ability to perform optimally.
For the first time in an ICC event, if cleared by their team doctor, players who were COVID positive were able to play. This had not been routinely done before and was not considered mainstream management for major international sporting codes. Cricket is an outdoor, socially distanced sport and poses minimal risk for teammates, opponents, and officials. The risk of transmission comes with activities associated with the game such as team meetings, transportation, change room use and socialising; activitiesl for which risk mitigation strategies could be safely implemented.
Certain requirements were in place to ensure all relevant people were informed; this involved notification to the CMO and declaration of the positive case to match officials, venue staff and opposition at the match day medical briefing. Opposing teams were empowered to then make decisions about minimising the exposure of their team to the positive case and implement safeguards such as avoiding physical contact, maintaining social distancing and, in the case of match officials, not holding hats and jumpers.
Masks were mandated in Players’ and Match Officials’ Area (PMOA) for all staff members and a separate change room space was provided for the positive case. Led by a doctor, teams were responsible for risk mitigation within their environment, isolating the positive cases away from the team and general public. This involved strategies such as good mask hygiene, no attendance at team meetings, separate transport, and doing all activities outdoors and socially distanced.
In total, there were 28 confirmed cases of COVID across the tournament; 11 within teams, no mass outbreaks reported and, as a result, no impact on the quality of cricket delivered.
There were numerous people behind the scenes who enabled the tournament; to be completed successfully and I would like to thank the BSAG committee for their support - Dr Carolyn Broderick (independent chair), David Musker (ICC COVID compliance officer), Caroline O’Brien (LOC biosafety lead), Dr Peter Harcourt (ICC MAC Chair), Tulsa Woodhams (ICC senior management) and Patrice Berthold (LOC operations manager).
The most important learning from the event was that the presence of travelling team doctors remains a vital risk mitigation strategy and improves the overall standard of player health and safety across all facets of the game. The success of providing autonomy to teams to independently manage and mitigate risk remains the priority for future tournaments.