Former England cricketer Mark Butcher has blasted the current playing group amid reports a number of leading players will boycott the upcoming Ashes series due to Australia’s COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Earlier today, England Test captain Joe Root remained tight-lipped on whether he would make the trip down to Australia by saying: “It is so hard to make a decision until we know what it looks like.”
As usual, the Ashes series is scheduled to start in December, but with interstate borders still closed and Queensland and Western Australia adopting a hardline attitude, it remains clouded how the five-Test series will play out.
Even England great Kevin Pietersen said it would be foolish for players to commit to the series unless quarantine restrictions were completely abolished due to the travel headaches it would put on players’ families.
“There is NO WAY I would go to The Ashes this winter,” Pietersen wrote on Twitter. “ZERO chance!”
https://twitter.com/KP24/status/1442367671199207424
Responding to the furore and suggestions that players will boycott the series, Butcher, a former England star of 71 Test matches, hit out at the current group.
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“I’m slightly furious about the idea that players are thinking about not going on an Ashes tour because they’re worried about the quarantine requirements for their wives and kids,” Butcher said on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast.
“Now, wives and kids going on trips in my time was very much a privilege, it wasn’t expected. I know times have changed a lot but given that everybody is having to make various sacrifices, lots of sacrifices, lots of things are different because of COVID-19.
“This is a one-off Ashes trip. Chances are, the next time it comes around, four years’ time, everything will be relatively back to normal and you’ll have your families there for Christmas and all the rest of it. But this is your job. This is how you earn your money.
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“If you’re earning that much money that it doesn’t matter to you whether you go on an Ashes trip anymore or whether or not there are no consequences for you pulling out of an Ashes trip, and you get just welcomed straight back into the side once again on the other side as though nothing has happened, then things have taken a pretty bad pass.”
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