Andrew Strauss adapts his mission to new realities

JAMES COYNE: The previous Red for Ruth Day, at last summer’s Lord’s Ashes Test, was accompanied by a bumper crowd, many of whom donned red, but this year Strauss will be delivering his appeal to an empty stadium at Emirates Old Trafford

Charities worldwide have been placed in something of a straitjacket by the coronavirus crisis, and so Andrew Strauss is more grateful than ever at the platform he will be given at this week’s Test match.

The former England captain and ECB managing director of cricket will join his Sky Sports colleagues in the biosecure bubble for the duration of the third Test against West Indies at Emirates Old Trafford, with all the broadcasters set to wear red, the signature colour of the Ruth Strauss Foundation.

The foundation was set up by Strauss in the wake of his wife Ruth’s tragically early death at the age of 46 from an inoperable form of lung cancer unconnected to smoking. The charity’s aim is to provide support for families facing the loss of a family member, as he and his sons, Sam, now 14, and Luca, now 12, did 18 months ago.

In the UK every year around 14,000 parents with children under 18 are diagnosed with incurable cancers; while 40,000 under-18s lose a parent.

The previous Red for Ruth Day, at last summer’s Lord’s Ashes Test, was accompanied by a bumper crowd, many of whom also donned red for the occasion, but this year Strauss will be delivering his appeals to an empty stadium at Emirates Old Trafford, the match played behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

“It will be different this year,” he said. “The world is in a different place. But hopefully it will be just as impactful.

“The current context around Covid-19 means that death is maybe at the forefront of people’s minds more than it may have been previously. Everyone facing death or the death of a parent needs a huge amount of support to navigate through that properly. That’s what we’re focusing on.

“What a lot of charities are finding is a reduction in donations, but more need than ever for the services they offer. I think one of the things all charities have found over the lockdown period is that their fundraising opportunities are somewhat limited, and their platform is limited alongside that. We have seen great support for NHS charities, which is fantastic.

“But we’ve had to think differently about what we do, with the online ball-tap challenge. We’ve had three or four events cancelled or postponed. Most of the events require people to be together in a room – which may not be possible for a while.

“We’re a small charity just starting on our journey, 12 months after being formed, and so we don’t have the big operational liabilities that other charities have, which obviously gives us a bit more flexibility.”

^{Lord's turned Red for Ruth during last year's Ashes series}

Strauss will be more reliant than ever on the participation of the broadcast partners, Sky Sports and the BBC, in getting his message across to the mass cricket-watching audience – and early evidence suggests that record numbers are tuning into this series as one of the first major live sporting events after the Covid-19 interregnum.

“We’ve had great support from the broadcasters. Given that there’s no one in the crowd our reliance on them is possibly greater than it was last year. Huge thanks to Sky and the BBC for wanting to play their role in this. They’re very much our conduit between us and the public.

“We’ll try and be as creative as we can be. We’re relatively limited in what we can do given the biosecure bubble.

“But there’s two main elements to any charity: number one is obviously the fundraising, and this is an opportunity for us to do so which would be hard for us to do any other guise.

“And two, to share with the public what you’re doing – not just the cricket public, but people generally tuning in who may have had an experience similar to what we’re addressing. That platform is not one we take lightly and we are determined to make the most of it.

“I personally felt last year that the combination of the Red for Ruth Day and some fantastic cricket added to the event, and hopefully we can do something similar this time.”

As for the wider impact of the foundation so far, Strauss says there has been progress on two fronts: firstly in providing sums to help medical research into non-smoking lung cancers; and secondly in building the groundwork for the Ruth Strauss Foundation Training Programme, which is designed to help healthcare professionals prepare the relatives of dying parents.

“It’s just incredible how many people have contacted the foundation who going through a similar thing than the one the boys and I have been on, who have reached out for support. But in order to scale that support, we need to offer extra training for all those people who come into contact with cancer patients.

“It’s not offered very widely throughout the UK, and my own experience of me and that of my boys shows us that if it’s done with the right level of support it can really help you navigate through an incredibly tough period.

“We want to offer that to as many people as possible – primarily starting with healthcare professionals, but branching out into teachers and schools too. Hopefully people are in the right place to start that conversation.

“Ultimately we estimate it’s going to cost us £200 to put someone through the Ruth Strauss Foundation training programme, so the more of those £200 we can raise, the more support we can give.”

At Emirates Old Trafford, Strauss will also be returning as a ringside pundit for Sky for the first time since being appointed chairman of the ECB cricket committee, an unpaid position. In that role he has had some involvement in helping arrange the return of international cricket to England, and the rearrangement of domestic cricket from August 1.

^{Strauss will re-join Sky Sports' coverage for the occasion at Emirates Old Trafford}

In light of that, Strauss’ disappointment in the mistake made by Jofra Archer to breach the biosecure bubble between the first and second Tests by returning home to Brighton is understandable.

Strauss said: “He made a pretty substantial mistake there. I’ve had some involvement in all the preparations about how to bring international cricket back. I have some understanding about the work the ECB have done with government to create an environment so the government are OK to sign off international cricket, so for him to not understand the gravity of that was definitely a mistake on his part.

“I think it’s been handled sensibly and sensitively by the ECB. It was clear he couldn’t play last week. I think he’s got the message loud and clear that it’s not something that should be repeated, as have all the other players as well.”

After his breach emerged, Archer was dropped from the second Test in Manchester and largely confined to his hotel room, where he has been on the receiving end of some predictably unhelpful interactions on social media, some of which he has reported as racist.

“It’s not one of those things he should be punished ad infinitum for doing, and we’re obviously conscious for what he’s been through over the last week, it sounds like a tough time in isolation. Feeling like Public Enemy No.1 is not a great thing for your mental health either.”

Strauss suggests Archer should be available for selection in England’s attack for the decisive last Test, with the Wisden Trophy on the line – as long as he is ready to play. His use of the word “reintegrate” to describe him rejoining the England team does have faint echoes of the Kevin Pietersen affair he was involved with, though the situation between Archer and the team does not seem fractured in any sense, as Strauss himself emphasised.

“As far as punishments handed out, he missed a Test match last week and has had to self-isolate and go through that whole procedure. Now it’s time to move forward.

“The team, the players will be very keen to reintegrate him and he’s a valuable and popular member of that team.”

For more information visit www.ruthstraussfoundation.com