We hope that you and your families are as safe and healthy as you can be given the unprecedented circumstances we have been confronted with.  

As you know that many of the cities and regions have been hardest hit, and we have no doubt that some of you will have already experienced different hardships which we believe provides some important perspective to our natural desire to pursue the return of social and normal life as quickly as possible.  And whilst there is no doubt that cricket will eventually return to play a powerful role in engaging, inspiring and uniting us together once again, we must be guided in developing those plans by caution, compassion and our overarching social responsibility.

We urge you all to continue responding to this crisis by practicing social distancing, looking after yourself and your families and being kind to all around you. Meanwhile, we are working with our cities and their respective sports organizations to try and figure out how and when cricket can safely return and we will be ready with our revised plans, calendars and protocols when that moment arrives. 
 We’ve separated the rest of this blog into two parts: firstly, VK Cricket Academy’s response to the COVID-19 crisis in a bit more detail; and secondly some additional newsworthy updates to report on.

• Ongoing Program: Over the last few months, we have been engaging with our Super Seniors and Seniors Squads through our newly created online management system.  Many of those players have, obviously, been extremely limited in their ability to physically train during this period, so this has been more about ensuring that they are safe, healthy and connected. In light of the changes to the playing calendar and the various social restrictions that have been imposed, the players in the Super Seniors were recently part of Online Sessions consisting of Strategies including learning fielding placements, angles of a ground, mind spaces required to read a game and strategies to overcome or face a situation. Additionally, they have been part of various sports psychology lessons and assessments. They now understand, where they are in terms of playing against an opponent, playing a game and most importantly, playing against themselves. In parallel, we have made sure the communications went to different groups/communities about the sessions for Seniors, where the Seniors have been learning the science behind ball movements, the different grips, rotations on a ball and the actions required to attain movements on the ball. The Seniors will continue to be part of learning the lessons that Super Seniors had learnt. In addition to these, we have started teaching both groups the MCC Laws of the Game, the most crucial elements of the game, from the perspective of the Umpires, not just the players, which they had understood only to an extent while playing so far. These sessions having been providing them great knowledge about the laws and how decisions are/will be made.

• Postponement/Cancelation of VKCA TOURNAMENTS:  VKCA’s Seniors’ and Juniors’ tournaments that were scheduled to be played during June would likely get postponed to later in July or August. We are working with Fremont & Union City Sports Offices as well as Mountain House & Tracy Sports offices, to ensure that this decision would be taken as far in advance as possible and we look forward to conducting the games when suitable dates can be arranged in the future. If there are no suitable dates for this calendar year, we would have to continue with our regular classes or continue meeting online to discuss a few ongoing topics or even consider canceling classes until further notice.

• Postponement/Reschedules of team Travels to India or Caribbean:  This year we had plans totake the best of the Super Seniors team or the entire Super Seniors team to visit either India or Caribbean. The idea was to get a ‘1 month’ training at one of the partner academies in India or the Caribbean, followed by a bunch of games and tours to world renowned stadiums. Further announcements about this planned tour, of course, remain under review.

• Cricket for the Girls: As part of the development program, this summer we were planning to announce commencement of Girl’s Cricket Program. At the time of writing, those events remain scheduled but under careful review. But we prepare ourselves for the prospect that this might also suffer a similar fate this year.

• School Development Program: As part of the ongoing development program of the academy, this year we also planned to conduct an all exclusive school cricket tournament after the completion of Seniors and Juniors tournaments. As is the case, based on the current situation, there will be modifications to the program and we would need your support as parents for our modified plans, which will soon be communicated. In order to provide an effective and thorough communication, an effort was made to conduct an online meeting. Unfortunately, due to different circumstances not many were able to attend it. We will schedule this at a later date.

• Scenario planning for the remainder for the 2020 calendar year and 2021: Obviously, it is important for all of us that we are as well prepared as possible for the return of cricket when that happens. Sadly, we have to accept that it is now quite possible that those events (and others within the planned calendar) will not take place in the manner in which they were originally intended. While the priority is still the safety of all our participants, we do have some flexibility within our plans and we are working to consider various scenarios for the remainder of the 2020 calendar year depending on multiple factors including facilities, their rentals, corresponding prices, alongside the current social distancing practices. We have facilitated a series of conference calls with a few parents and will do so on an ongoing basis, per the guidelines from state, city and their respective sports offices, in order to allow parents to share their own local experiences, challenges and plans. The sharing of knowledge and ideas in this way will result in the development of some collectively supported domestic guidelines for cricket program across the different cities/counties.