Aaron Finch: Mental health 'something to monitor heavily' in bio-secure bubble in England

Mental health will be top of the agenda for the Australia men's team as they resume international cricket for the first time since March with the tour to England, which is likely to be the beginning of a long period in bio-secure bubbles for most of their players.

The Australian squad flies out of Perth on Sunday for a limited-overs tour which includes three T20Is and three ODIs. They will initially be based in Derby before the internationals take place at the major bio-secure venues at the Ageas Bowl and the Old Trafford.

From there some players will head to the IPL in the UAE, which will require almost two more months in a biosecure environment. Australia's international players then face the prospect of heading home straight into another bubble to prepare for their home season, which is likely to face significant reorganisation.

Even those who return straight back to Australia after the England matches will be required to undertake two weeks quarantine in Perth - although CA is trying to negotiate a possibility of them being able to train during that period - and the Australian domestic summer is looking increasingly likely to require hubs of various types given the travel and border restrictions in place.

It all adds up to what will be a challenging period that could last until after Christmas at least, and may yet be a model needed for considerably more time depending on how the Covid-19 pandemic impacts sport over the next 12 months.

"[Mental health] is something to monitor heavily," Australia's limited-overs captain Aaron Finch said. "I know from an Australian point of view there's a lot of work behind the scenes going into making sure there's as good a goal post in place for players and really tailored approaches to make sure that we've got all our checkpoints in place to understand and recognise when things might be a little bit off. It could be a few months that people are in these bio bubbles and being stuck in a hotel room by yourself can be really tough."

Team psychologist Michael Lloyd will travel with the squad to the UK and has been talking to players individually ahead of the trip. "I definitely feel it's going to be a real issue and a real factor over the next couple of years in particular," Finch said.

Australia will follow England, West Indies, Pakistan and Ireland into the biosecure environment which appears set to enable the ECB to play their entire men's international summer despite the pandemic. England have so far kept their Test and limited-overs squads entirely separate - although there could be some overlap during the Australia series - while the Test players were allowed a brief exit from the bubble between the West Indies and Pakistan series.

The whole operation has been a considerable success although there has been the occasional breach, most notably when Jofra Archer made a detour home which forced him to miss the second Test against West Indies. Last week Mohammad Hafeez also broke protocol by having a picture taken with a member of the public on the golf course adjacent to the hotel at the Ageas Bowl. Access to the golf course has been one of the few activities available to the players inside the bubbles away from the cycle of hotel room, training and playing.

Finch said that there would be conversations with the squad about all the protocols in place ahead of their departure and how to ensure everything is followed to the letter but knowing the consequences should be enough of a reminder.

"What's important to remember is we are in a position to help continue the global game," Finch said. "And there should be no more motivation than that to do everything right.

"I've been very strong with the guys in the last couple of weeks about making sure that we do literally everything we can with regards to the protocols to keep the global game going. Because at the end of the day, if that fails then we are all out of jobs and the game is not in a healthy state, which we can't afford to have.

"There's been so much time and effort put in by thousands of people to give us the opportunity to play international cricket again, and even us leaving Australia, leaving Victoria, is a big process. The people who've worked their backside off over the last couple of months to allow it to happen, thousands of people are doing an unbelievable amount of work to get the game up and running again. So we owe it to them in particular to do everything right."