'Almost impossible': ECB confronts tough COVID reality

ECB managing director Ashley Giles is confident the COVID-19 outbreak that left selectors needing to pick an entirely fresh squad for England's upcoming ODI and T20I series against Pakistan was not a result of biosecurity breaches, but added cricket officials have found themselves walking a fine line as restrictions are increasingly relaxed across the UK.

England named nine uncapped players in a new 18-man group for the white-ball matches after their entire first-choice squad was forced into isolation following seven positive cases of COVID-19.

Allrounder Ben Stokes, who was not part of the initial squad as he was in the early stages of his return from a finger injury, has been recalled and named captain.

Giles foreshadowed England players would now be subjected to tighter restrictions on their movements and social interactions as the UK Government announced its plan to move to stage four of the COVID-19 roadmap despite infection rates climbing across Britain.

Unlike last summer when the UK was in the grip of a first wave of COVID infections, England's players are currently not being housed in hotels designated solely for cricketers and crowd numbers at fixtures continue to push closer to full capacity.

As a result, the likelihood of players testing positive to COVID is significantly increased although symptoms of the virus are lessened given the high rate of vaccinations (more than 86 per cent with one dose, around 65 per cent with two) in the UK.

Giles believes everyone who is part of the new England squad has received at least one dose of COVID vaccine, and pledged to "get everyone double-vaccinated as soon as we can".

"If we haven't got sole use of hotels, if we have grounds with crowds and you have staff coming in and out of the environment then, however much testing you do, there is going to be risk," Giles said.

"We are seeing an almost-impossible situation as society opens and the virus is still spreading.

"I don't believe we've gambled at all.

"We are fully aware of the risks and we are aware of the knife-edge that we are working on all the time.

"We are trying to look after our people and keeping them sane while protecting the revenues of the whole game.

"It is a difficult balance to strike."

England's players were still subject to a raft of restrictions prior to this week's outbreak, with players involved in the recent white-ball series against Sri Lanka not permitted to return home before the Pakistan series as well as being forbidden from eating in restaurants or visiting bars.

But in addition to changes from 'hard isolation' such as sole occupancy of hotels (apart from eating areas and other high-risk transmission spaces), the players were allowed to exercise outdoors and have family members visit them under carefully orchestrated and closely monitored guidelines.

"Last year we lived in bio-secure environments and this year we tried to operate in what we called 'safe environments' (and) hotels weren't sole use," Giles said.

"We were sharing certain spaces within the hotel … and given this variant, which is clearly more infectious, the risk of us catching infection in the group was obviously going to go up.

"During this period - these next six games (against Pakistan) I think we are going to have to tighten up the environment.

"But we're still going to be in shared spaces in hotels so there's still risk.

"We are dealing with difficult circumstances and there is still a bit of unknown.

"We probably won't sleep easy until we have got through those PCR (COVID) tests and arrive in Cardiff."

The Welsh capital is where the five-Test series between England and India begins on August 4, shortly before a further easing of UK restrictions which eliminates the need for fully vaccinated individuals to self-isolate if identified as a close contact of someone with COVID-19.