"There's a huge amount of hard work that goes in to try and secure the site; it's something that nobody has ever done before"
Thursday 4 June 2020 17:19, UK
Lancashire's director of cricket Paul Allott says it will be an unprecedented achievement should the county succeed in staging Test cricket at Emirates Old Trafford in July.
The ground will house the West Indies touring team in quarantine for 14 days from next week and then host the second and third Tests against England from July 16 following the series opener at the Ageas Bowl from July 8 - matches you will be able to watch on Sky Sports should they receive governmental clearance as the coronavirus lockdown eases.
Allott told The Cricket Show that Lancashire is still recovering from the 'devastating' loss of its chairman David Hodgkiss, who died in March after testing positive for Covid-19, but that under successor Les Platts the county - which announced a profit of £5m in 2019 - is unstinting in its efforts to stage cricket again for the good of the game.
"We're pretty well-placed commercially with the hotel that we've got in place - that's the key factor in all of this, that we can keep all the players and officials within the bounds of Emirates Old Trafford whilst the games are on," said Allott.
"Of course, there's a huge amount of hard work that goes in to try and secure the site; it's something that nobody has ever done before, so in terms of our operations director and department they've been hard at it for the last two weeks.
"Perhaps the biggest impact, and we shouldn't forget this, is on Matt Merchant, our groundsman, and the groundstaff because they are planning for three Test matches (hopefully there will be one a little bit later against Pakistan - that's yet to be confirmed) plus any number of one-day internationals.
"So we've probably got 22-24 days of international cricket to be played at Old Trafford, or to be planning for anyway, and that takes an awful lot of hard work from groundstaff to not only get the Test matches and ODI matches pitches prepared but also with having the West Indies in isolation on our ground, we've basically got all that net and square preparation as well to encounter.
"So it's a huge effort from absolutely everybody involved. It'll be a fantastic achievement."
Allott believes that there's a 90 per cent chance that county cricket will begin in August and said that detailed planning is under way to ensure that the return of international cricket does not have a negative impact on the county players.
The squad has yet to train due to what Allott calls the "complex and time-consuming" processes involved in providing a safe, biosecure environment.
The former England seamer revealed that it can take between five and six hours for four England players - including seamer James Anderson - to train in isolation at Emirates Old Trafford while observing the protocols set out by the England and Wales Cricket Board.
But he told The Cricket Show that the county - which lifted the County Championship division two title in 2019 - now feels in a position to initiate a return to training, perhaps as early as in a week's time.
"We are one of two counties, along with Surrey, who haven't furloughed the players so we are in close contact and have been right the way through this," he said.
"Although our players haven't practiced at all either in small groups or in larger groups as yet, we are planning to do that towards the back end of next week.
"The challenge, of course, is that with the West Indies coming into Emirates Old Trafford on either Monday or Tuesday next week, everybody has to move away from the ground - it's in isolation for the West Indies.
"We've had a number of England players practicing at Emirates Old Trafford - Jimmy Anderson has been bowling there, as has Matt Parkinson, Saqib Mahmood; Richard Gleeson has started as well and Keaton Jennings has been batting. They are going to be joined soon by Liam Livingston as well.
"So what I've had to do is try and find other venues we can use, which is not easy. We've got Liverpool as our second venue but the way the schedule is looking, we're going to have to use Liverpool to play matches in August because I don't think we'll be able to use Emirates Old Trafford.
"Maybe we could get a game or two in a small gap in August. Liverpool has a finite number of pitches, of course, so we can't use those for practice so we have to go somewhere else.
"So the plan is to set up at Chester Boughton Hall; I know that's not in Lancashire, but it has two big grounds, fantastic squares, great pitches, four nets. So we're hoping to start practicing there next week, plus set up a number of satellite grounds."
