After canceling two years of matches due to the pandemic, the English visually impaired cricket team is using the downtime to regroup and refocus

"There are so many dangers on your local street, even near your own home," Nathan Foy said of his daily life. "Where else can I run around, in the worst case, I met a referee?"

Foy is a legend of blind cricket. For more than two decades, he has been the core figure of the English cricket team for the visually impaired, and this number is still increasing, including in the mid-2000s, when he was undoubtedly the best player in the world.

Now, he is doing defensive training in Edgbaston, and his body pounces in one way and another, and pounces on a series of plastic balls with rattling ball bearings. This is his only sensory clue. Understand Something that is hitting him.

Foy is participating in a two-day training camp at the indoor school as the VI team continues to reappear from the stagnation period during the pandemic. It was clear from his promise that he had nowhere to go, even though-at the age of 41-he started creaking at the seams.

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"I used to be able to do things with my body," he said. "Now I do this regardless of my body. When I was a kid, I used to jump and triple jump a lot. From the waist down I looked like an Olympic athlete, but now I have a daddy's body."

However, in the mind of a man who has achieved alpha status in an extraordinary, exceptionally detailed movement, Foy enjoys a kind of freedom that he suspects he cannot replicate in any other realm.

"In my life, cricket was a real stone to me," he said. "Without my guide dog, it is difficult for me to walk on the street. He keeps me safe. But here I can roll around on the floor and feel like part of the team. Not everyone has this opportunity. "

However, in the past year and a half, no one in the VI community has had such an opportunity. Covid may have caused serious disruption to the mainstream sports schedule, but it is nothing compared to the overall devaluation of the disability plan. England’s sixth team suffered the postponement of the Battle of Ashes for two consecutive summers in 2020 and 2021, although there are tentative plans to host the World Cup again in 2023-the team hopes to make progress in the semi-finals of India four years ago -Nothing so ambitious can be set in stone.

Therefore, although there are some optimistic voices about the schedule for next summer, people's expectations that normal conditions will quickly recover are not high. "We briefly had hope earlier this summer," said team deputy captain and opening pitcher Justin Hollingsworth. "Everyone got together again for a few outdoor training [courses], and then everything was cancelled. But that's the truth."

However, for England VI coach John Cook, the mandatory suspension is not entirely without benefits. Excellence may be the benchmark he and his team ultimately seek to judge. If blind cricket is to achieve the kind of mainstream leap managed by the Paralympics, it will be crucial to narrow the gap with the subcontinent giants India and Pakistan in London in 2012. And with its own strength, it has become a recognized elite sport.

But the void created by Covid in the VI timeline provides an opportunity to reassess the human aspect and expand the foundation of the game-its oversized rattle and underarm bowling action-always seem to be related to England’s physical disability, learning disability and hearing A more familiar version used by obstacle teams.

Cook said: "Most people in society can participate as long as they are more careful and considerate." "This may be a simple case of communication-greeting and goodbye, courtesy and encouragement-but for us, this is also It is related to the environment of the cricket game. We are not saying that it is easier and more accessible to spread and make cricket, but it is actually easy to find a way, we just need to find that way."

The route taken by England captain Ed Hossell to participate in the VI cricket game reflects how accidental the chances in this sport are. As a teenager, Hossell was diagnosed with Stargardt's disease, a degenerative disease that affects sharp central focus. This means that his involvement in mainstream cricket will inevitably end, but a small ad that happened upon Sainsbury changed his relationship with the sport.

"Cricket is the last thing I think of, really," he said. "But then my mother found the flyer for the Somerset visually impaired cricket team:'Experiment here. Call us.' So I showed up, I liked it, I never looked back...forgive the pun. "

"It's not heresy, it's just different," Cook said of the apparent changes in the sport. "These are cricket players who want to play cricket on the cricket court. It really should be that simple. But as we discovered, it may be complicated. Some players may live a mile away from the club, but Logistically, they may need to spend three-quarters of an hour in the opposite direction of public transportation to find their way."

To this end, Cook invited 40 community coaches to Edgbaston to observe training courses and absorb the nuances of the sport, and finally indulged in breaking when they returned to the local club with the idea of ​​expanding the base of the sport. myth.

"Before, only the two of us tried to prepare the team for the World Championship," he said. "But with the help of 40 other people, this is definitely a better thing-not only to accommodate people with disabilities, but also for those who want to support them. It's incredible to think of these possibilities."

The VI cricket team consists of players in three vision categories-from partial vision B3 and B2 to total blindness B1. There need to be four players of the last type in any given XI.

The fastest bowler in this format tends to reach underarm speeds of 65-70 mph, and requires at least two bounces for each pitch, once in every half of the court, causing the ball bearings to rattle and make audible prompts. Wait for the batter.

However, as assistant coach Jason Wood pointed out, the entry point of the game is pointless-in fact, these tactics are almost refreshingly discriminatory. For example, when hitting the ball, adjusting your shot to pick opponent B1 on the court has a clear advantage. For the bowler, if you can apply enough centrifugal force to force the ball bearing to grab the shell of the ball, it will effectively keep silent for a few critical seconds and increase your chances of being deceived during the flight.

"This is a ruthless, cunning game," Wood said. "Some people are very, very good at it. We would love to develop a transparent training ball with multi-color ball bearings so that we can really see what's happening inside and deal with it appropriately. But in fact, this is in line with the mainstream Cricket is no different. In mainstream cricket, the ability to swing or spin the ball means that the batter cannot visually judge its whereabouts."

It's not that any such tricks seem to stop Foy's pomp. In this format, the points scored by B1 players are doubled, which means that any team that can develop a strategy around its weakest player can ensure that it has a considerable lead. In the 2002 World Cup for the Blind, Foy proved this with two powerful centuries, including his career best 232 against Pakistan and 152 undefeated against India, which made England still the only time that England have won. The team with the most decorations in this form.

"I hold a lot of world records for blind cricket runs, many of which boil down to training myself to listen to the ball very specifically," Foy said. "People talk about hand-eye coordination. Well, I believe in hands and ears. I also received the ball, which is really difficult for B1, but when the ball is in the air, I can almost see it in my opinion. And not only do you I hope my hands are coordinated, and I hope I can feel it all over my body, because this is very important for the game."

However, Foy's strength is not without controversy. In the ashes of 2008, although all B1s wore blackout glasses to ensure a level playing field, the Australian media began to accuse him of being "not blind enough." But when he hears his own life story, one will think of the extraordinary hardships of creating a disabled champion.

"I have congenital glaucoma," Foy said. "Most people get glaucoma when they are over 60 years old. This is because the pressure in the eye gradually increases and starts to damage the optic nerve. But I have it in the womb, so by the time I was a teenager, I was actually blind. Yes. To me, the world looks very, very bright, but at least I can tell the difference between light and dark, so I can move around well.

"But, about three years ago, I removed my retina. I went from a world that was too bright to darkness...really, really black, almost black. I replaced one kind of blindness with another A kind of blindness, it affects my balance and my ability to be a parent. I find it really difficult."

However, despite his apparent helplessness, Foy still insists on his place in the sport-not only because it still brings him a sense of liberation, but also because he refuses to be defined by his own limitations, which is exactly this. What the sport needs is more than just the imitation of a healthy cricket, and give it its own identity.

"Everyone in blind cricket is looking to B1 for guidance," Wood said. "Sometimes, when you look at other flaws, the difference between these players is not always obvious. But here, you quickly realize, wow, these guys can do things we can’t do because of their skills Base"

Part of the secret to Foy's long-term success lies in his naive batting technique, which includes staying low-preparing for the dominant sweep technique required by underarm ballistics-but then cutting the ball, almost like swinging an axe.

"The moment the bowler throws the ball, there is very little time to decide the course and speed of the ball," Foy said. "I use my bat like I am cutting a tree and try to hit the ball at the end of my bat with maximum acceleration. If I miss time and the ball hits the stump, that's it."

In order to enhance his recovery ability at the crease, Foy's training included throwing a plastic ball at him to ensure that he was not afraid of being hit. This wholehearted approach was also reflected in his goalkeeper defense. "If you don't come down quickly, you may leave a gap in your armpit," he said. "For me, defense is half the fun of the game. If you use your entire body, nothing will pass."

This is a far cry from the traditional background brought to this sport by many B2 and B3 in England. But it is also very encouraging, because for some of these players, their blindness is a journey with only one destination. Therefore, absorbing these lessons now will benefit them a lot when they also enter the B1 state.

Take Hollingsworth as an example. At the age of 12, he was a member of the Warwickshire Youth Team, fighting alongside current team members Henry and Ethan Brooks. "But there was a problem in the night game. The bowler kept hitting me on the thigh pad and I realized,'I didn't see this at all,'" he recalled. "So I had to walk away, this is the end."

Within three years, Hollingsworth played for England's VI team, initially B3, but now he is classified as low-end B2. "This brings its own challenges," he said, "because people have become accustomed to the fact that I am no longer good at hitting or on the court. These days I am more of a pitcher.

"When I first started playing, I started with front foot driving and forward defense, but it didn't work in this format," Hollingsworth added. "But catching and catching are almost the same, just slightly adjusted, so you can usually tell people who have a cricket background because they have basic knowledge.

"This is just a very interesting game," Hossell added. "I think this is a great spectacle, whether it is a disabled sport or not. It is very tactile because you can really hear the sound of the ball and the score is really high. But the most important thing is , It allows you to see your sight in a very positive way, don’t be too sentimental. All people will say that we are lucky to do this."

Hossell’s seven-year experience as an England cricketer includes two World Cups, in South Africa in 2014, "the stadium is very close to Table Mountain, and we can even see it". The most memorable one was in India in 2017 , The crowd there was so enthusiastic-especially India's victory over Pakistan in the final in Bangalore-that they had to remain silent every time they delivered.

"That tour was an incredible experience," Hossel said. "It's uninterrupted. Without so much support for disabled cricket, that's the kind of experience we can't even dream of. They are my most precious memories, and I hope they will last for a long time."

Despite the peak of Covid, I hope these memories will be added in the summer of 2022. The delayed Ashes series will be resumed. Although the European Central Bank has experienced a painful round of funding cuts after the 2020 lockdown, due to the total lack of administrative expenses for the campaign during the 18 months, the proportional reduction of the disability plan has been Be relieved.

The stagnation has certainly not affected the players in their pockets-they are all hobbyists, working in a variety of different professions, from university lecturers to financial analysts to policy writers. Foy works full-time for the guide dogs of the Association for the Blind—"Most services don't involve dogs at all," he said. "We have more child services than adult services, so this keeps me busy."

"The pandemic gives us a chance to take a deep breath," Cook added. "We have recombined the way we want to try and win, as well as the style and philosophy we want to develop. So now we just hold our breath and wait for these opportunities to return to our schedule and be ready to welcome them off. "

Andrew Miller is the British editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket