Golden oldies may be denied the farewell they deserve

HUWZAT ON WEDNESDAY: Could the coronavirus crisis mean we have seen the last of Ian Bell, Darren Stevens and Ryan ten Doeschate?

We wuz robbed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has denied us many things. Our civil liberties; in some cases livelihoods; and also, tragically – lives.

Lower down on the scale, the wipeout of at least the first half of the summer, as seems likely, has deprived us of seeing some of our favourite cricketers enjoying precious moments in the autumns of their careers.

Now, we all know it is absolute folly to write Darren Stevens off.

But for one rotten moment last summer it looked as if the evergreen allrounder had reached the end. He’d not really fired on loan for Derbyshire in the Vitality Blast, and the last four County Championship games of the season looked as if they would be his last hurrah.

How wrong could we have been? He recorded match figures of 5 for 47 against Essex, then scored against 88 Nottinghamshire, and – even more improbably – a career-best 237 against Yorkshire at Headingley. He hit nine sixes and 28 fours!

Unsurprisingly contract talks reopened, and he agreed a one-year extension at Kent.

What will happen now?

If there is any cricket this summer it is expected that the Blast will take precedence. Stevens is deemed surplus to requirements in that format. Surely he will be given another one-year deal for 2021… but he will be 45 then. He can’t go on forever… can he?

Brian Close was recalled to face West Indies in the summer of 1976 at the age of 45.

Let’s just say the tourists’ quicks did not take his age into account!

These are different times, though. Professional cricketers must be athletes. There’s only so much Sanatogen Gold A to Z and Radox baths can do for you.

^{Sir Alastair Cook has said that he would not be in favour of a truncated, meaningless red-ball campaign}

I’m sad for others too.

Ian Bell missed the 2019 season, save for a couple of 2nd XI matches, through injury. This is the final year of his Warwickshire contract. He will be 39 in 2021. Please tell me we have not seen the last of his peachy timing.

Alastair Cook will be tied up with lambing about now, but it doesn’t look as if he will be playing much this summer. By his own admission he says he doesn’t think there should be a truncated, token four-day competition.

If he adheres to his contract, we might have just one year left of one of England’s greatest batsmen.

His Essex teammate Ryan ten Doeschate was looking forward to a (possibly) final year back in the ranks after he relinquished the captaincy. Have we seen the last of him? I do hope not.

There’s also the international game to worry about.

James Anderson turns 38 on July 30.

Again, never write him off, but the whirligig of time brings in his revenges as we all know.

Then there are the tourists – West Indies and Pakistan.

There’s talk of rearranging at least the first series of the summer to the Caribbean. Would that mean we’ve seen the last of speedsters Shannon Gabriel and Kemar Roach, both 30, operating in tandem in this country.

If the Pakistan series is cancelled, will Azhar Ali, 35, have another chance to lead his side in Test action in England?

Of course losing a summer is nothing compared to those great cricketers who suffered the supreme ill-fortune of being at their peaks during the world wars.

Kent and England’s great slow left-armer Colin Blythe died at Passchendaele in World War One.

Hedley Verity heads the list of famous players who died during World War Two.

And the conflict took seven years or so out of most players’ careers.

The great George Headley of West Indies was reduced to just 22 Test caps thanks to the Second World War. He played 19 Tests before the War, then came back for three more nine years later.

Hopefully this health crisis will take a less severe toll on cricket and cricketers, but we can still lament lost opportunities to see our favourites bring glorious careers to a close in fitting fashion.