Ashley Giles assures training England to be safer than going to supermarket

England’s Ashley Giles said taking back country’s main cricketers to training will be safer than going to a market for shopping.

Ashley Giles added that it was “not realistic” for players to spend many weeks in isolation away from their families.

The pandemic has delayed the start of the English cricket season and many international matches until July 1.

The British government has published guidelines on how elite sportsmen and women could return to training.

The ECB have responded by selecting a still-to-be announced training squad of 30 players, with bowlers leading the way at seven grounds from Wednesday of next week.

After a two-week period, once the bowlers have reached their desired loading efforts, batsmen and wicketkeepers will start their programmes, with 11 venues in all set to host training sessions.

Players will train individually on a staggered basis with a coach and physio in attendance.

“This is individual-based training so in many ways we should be able to get control of the environment right so it s safer to go back to practice than it is to go to the supermarket,” Giles told in a conference.

“I would be nervous, certainly,” said Giles. “But we are doing everything we possibly can to answer all of the West Indies questions.”

“We will be speaking to Pakistan as well and mitigating as much risk as we possibly can.”

However, he admitted that it would be difficult to prevent bowlers shining the ball as normal with saliva and sweat on health grounds.

“How are we going to stop Jimmy Anderson walking back to his mark touching his forehead for example and then the ball? It s going to be tricky to break those habits.”

Plans are being drawn up to play matches at bio-secure venues with grounds such as Hampshire’s Ageas Bowl and Old Trafford reportedly favoured because they have on-site hotels.

“We have a good bunch of players, but it isn’t realistic to expect them to be in a bubble for 10 weeks,” said Giles.

“Testing, tracing and tracking will have changed a hell of a lot by then and that should help us. Otherwise we are going to have to be smart with selection.”

“We are a business like everyone else,” said Giles.

“Businesses across the world are suffering right now and we have got to try and do our bit to protect the business.”

Giles added that while countries were all “fighting our own fires” at the moment, global cooperation would be needed amid doubts over October’s Twenty20 World Cup in Australia and cricket’s future tours programme.

“We are worried about getting our own deals done. It’s the same in Australia and India and everywhere else around the world,” he said.