Finally some good news for cricket lovers across the globe, England bowlers Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad returned to the cricket field for their individual training session. This was the first occasion when the England bowlers took to field in over two months since the COVID-19 lockdown was enforced across England.
While Stuart Broad posted a short video of his training session at Tent Bridge on instagram, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) tweeted a video of Chris Woakes’ session at Edgbaston, the home ground of Warwickshire County Cricket Club (WCCC).
The training were initially slated to take off on Wednesday but got postponed due to complications in health and safety measures. Following which the board decided to name a set of bowlers for the ‘individual training session’. Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Chris Woakes are among the bowlers whom ECB directed to start the training again on Thursday.
The individual training session are the first phase of the three-phased return of international Cricket planed by ECB, which aims to prepare a pool of 25-30 players for bio-secure Test against West Indies and Pakistan in July.
Felt great to be back: Stuart Broad
Stuart Broad, in an Instagram video, showed the set up prepared by staffs for the training session. In the short video he was seen bowling at the nets. He expressed his gratitude to all the people, who had made the training session possible for him. Besides, he wrote that he felt great to be “back out there having a bowl.”
“So much work has gone on behind the scenes to make this possible. Thanks to all the people @englandcricket & @trentbridge who have been involved, I really appreciate it. Felt great to be back out there having a bowl. Loved it” wrote the England bowling star,” wrote Stuart Broad on his Instagram handle
Strict guidelines
Considering the safety and well-being of the players, the ECB, in line with the UK government health guidelines, has prepared a set of strict guidelines to be followed by its players during these sessions.
The guidelines say that players would train individually in nets while maintaining a distance of at least 2 metre with the coach. The Physio, wearing a PPE kit, will be there to help players medically in case of any injury.
The guidelines also include the temperature check-up of players and individual rest rooms to be allotted to players.
After two weeks, the batsmen will join the England bowlers in the nets. The board intends prepare a pool of players to play a intra-squad match at the Ageas Bowl, before the end of June.
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