Resumption of cricket to lift morale of fans: KP

ISLAMABAD: Former England ace cricketer Kevin Pietersen believed resumption of cricket would lift morale of fans around the world during the Covid-19 crisis as there was no harm in playing cricket behind the close doors.

“Every effort should be made to resume professional cricket as soon as it is safe to do so. Fans, the public, need a morale boost. Their morale at the moment is so negative, so down in the dumps,’ the 39-year-old said in an interview with a UK based newspaper.

‘Sport is so uplifting and so positive for so many people. New sport will have to be played behind closed doors until we find a vaccination for coronavirus. Sportsmen have got to deal with it.’

With golfer Rory McIlroy preparing to play a charity event on May 17 and English soccer’s Premier League plotting a return for mid-June, Pietersen finds in unfathomable that any top athlete would not want to be plying their trade as soon as possible.

“Some sportsmen are in the prime of their life. Why would they not want to be playing? So what if the crowds are not there? The crowds may not be there in person but the broadcasting numbers will be massive.’

Looking more broadly at a possible silver lining to the crisis, Pietersen said it was an opportunity for his sport to have a serious look at solutions to problems shared by the entire cricketing world.

“The nice thing, if you can have a look at something that’s nice about this coronavirus, is it’s affecting absolutely everybody,’ Pietersen said.

“Virat Kohli is in the same position as Kane Williamson as Joe Root to Steve Smith as Quinton de Kock … we’re all in this together. So we’ve all got to come together, understand what’s important to us, work together, get through this together and make good decisions together.”

Always a big favourite with fans, Pietersen hit 23 centuries and scored more than 8,000 runs in 104 tests for England before finally hanging up his bat in 2018 after a few years playing for club teams across the world.

Article source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/657441-resumption-of-cricket-to-lift-morale-of-fans-kp