The current COVID-19 outbreak closed in around the two teams three days before the fourth Test at the SCG with ominous air of an approaching storm.
It has now embroiled coaching staff, net bowlers, match officals, an Australian player and the media; there are still two teams that can take the field but all around them is chaos.
England started the day training without most of their coaching staff, as was the case in Melbourne after the early conclusion of the third Test.
Head coach Chris Silverwood, after isolating with family members who had returned positive test results, has also tested positive; he is asymptomatic and will remain in isolation with his family until the fifth Test in Hobart, should it go ahead.
Assistant coaches Jon Lewis and Jeetan Patel, as well as strength and conditioning coach Daz Veness, are also isolating after family members tested positive.
There are a total of nine positive cases in the England camp.
England’s plan to draft in former ODI captain Adam Hollioake as a support coach was then scuppered when he was deemed a close contact after driving down from the Gold Coast to join the squad in Sydney.
“Happy New Year everyone,” Hollioake tweeted. “Was hoping to start the year off well when I got called up to coach @ECB_cricket.
“All was looking good only for me to be a covid close contact and have to do a week quarantine.
“Can't make it up.
“If this is Gods will for me then that’s ok…I accept my hand & am grateful for my health.”
At the SCG, England had started training with local net bowlers, as is the norm.
Midway through the session, all net bowlers were pulled from training after two of them returned positive test results.
The tests were taken as part of Cricket Australia's pre-entry protocols, however there was no clarity on why the test results only became known after training had begun.
Late in the evening CA clarified the two bowlers had recently recovered from COVID and were no danger to the players, even though it was felt necessary to withdraw them; it was a muddled mess.
As it was, England and then Australia conducted full training using whatever resources were available at the ground, a particularly difficult scenario for an England camp already short of staff.
Batting coach Graham Thorpe, who is filling in as head coach in Silverwood’s absence, and assistant coaches Ant Botha and James Foster were joined by players and remaining staff members in providing throwdowns alongside the bowlers; even the batters chipped in, with Joe Root using the sidearm to assist Ollie Pope in the temporary nets set up in the centre of the SCG.
Watching them were members of the written media who had been informed that several of their colleagues had received positive rapid antigen or PCR results following the MCG Test.
While broadcast staff will all be required to take a PCR test in the lead up to the first day of the Pink Test because of their proximity to the players, there are no such requirements for the written press unless they are showing symptoms and there are significant difficulties procuring RATs or PCRs amid spiralling case numbers.
Glenn McGrath, who is normally front and centre for an event that is closely associated with fundraising for the McGrath Foundation, has also tested positive and will not be at the SCG during the match.
Nor will match referee David Boon, who is another positive covid case.
Any thoughts of England’s batting techniques or the fitness of Josh Hazlewood seemed secondary as the realisation set in that the remainder of this series is hanging by a thread while COVID swirls around ever closer to the teams; there is a sense of unreality as the players just try to get on with the job of preparing for a Test match as best as they can.
Due to Travis Head’s positive test result, Australia have added Mitch Marsh and Josh Inglis to the squad and Marcus Harris will also rejoin the team after testing negative; the three players players self-drove to Sydney from Melbourne and will train at the SCG on Monday.
But England do not have the same luxury.
All players are being tested on a daily basis, on at least one occasion taking a new PCR test before receiving the results of the previous one.
Hobart may have secured hosting rights to the fifth Test when it became clear Western Australia’s tough border restrictions would make a Perth Test impossible but, after Sunday’s dramas unfolded, it will be a small miracle if a packed SCG Test is completed without further COVID-related incidents.
At one point during the day, Mark Wood and one of the support staff came to the outside nets and informed those present of the situation surrounding the lack of net bowlers.
“Shambles,” sang Dawid Malan.
It succinctly summed up the day.
