A hopeful escape and a metaphor for life before a virus came along to cause the kind of disruption that even terror attacks could not. This was sport for most of 2020, courtesy COVID-19.
Heck, even the Olympics, that lofty symbol of human spirit and resilience, had to be postponed, and the last time this happened was when the world was at war.
It was a year when Diego Maradona, the maverick who split defences in his prime and later dodged death despite his reckless lifestyle, bid a sudden final goodbye leaving his devotees crying on the streets.
How could India not feel its share of jolts?
There were deaths that left fans distraught, there was a retirement that was expected but still seemed unacceptable, training across sports shut down for most of the year and athletes copped with one cancelled tournament after another as fear of the virus took precedence over the desire to compete.
They couldn’’t be faulted and neither can the misery of not having enough sporting action compare to the economic and emotional devastation that the pandemic has caused and continues to cause. But as Dale Steyn said in an interview when it all began to unravel, “…If you take sport away, then I don’’t know really what we have.”
It wasn’’t that big a concern for his cricket community though. They found a way to hop from one bio-bubble to another and compete after a few months at home. A 53-day IPL went off without a major hitch in front of empty stands in the UAE and delivered record viewership. But for the rest, the uncertainty was never-seen-before and although most were relieved that the Olympics did not go ahead amid the health crisis, the underlying fear of precious time slipping away from their hands was hard to miss.AGENCIES