BCCI Umpire Madanagopal Bio Bubble Quarantine

Locked inside a room for six days without a face to face meeting

Top BCCI 20 Umpire recounts life in a bio bubble and the Quarantine Challenges

In March last year, former South Zone middle order batsman JR Madanagapopal received an email announcing his appointment as a fourth umpire in the 2020 IPL (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2020/03/umpire-madanagopal-ipl-call.html) that was to be held in India. However, the joy was short lived as the COVID restrictions that came into force a fortnight later meant that only limited number of officials made the trip to Dubai and he lost out on the opportunity. Since then, as with most other umpires in the BCCI Panel, it has been a long wait for him to get back on to the ground. And when the call came for him to leave for Bombay for the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, he was excited and looking forward to officiating in a cricket match again.

Locked in a room for six days

However, little did he realise the 'lonely' challenges that lay in store for him in the first week of this new calendar year. After testing negative in Madras, he left for Bombay on January 3. For the first time in his life, he was locked inside a room for 6days and did not physically meet a single human being through till January 9 as part of the quarantine ahead of the tournament.  Even food was placed outside the door and he had to pick the food from there. There was no face to face interaction for 6 days even with his umpiring colleagues and the match referees, let alone the players.

Madanagopal narrates the challenging experience in the initial days of being quarantined and locked in the bio bubble “It was a very challenging experience because usually the BCCI scheduling of matches for umpires is hectic and we are on the field doing what we know best. But here I was locked inside a room and not able to meet a single individual for many days. I never came out of my room for six days. The first three days were really stressful and there was dullness within. We had to do something on our own through the day and night. It was not easy to manage but I constanly gave myself the positive reinforcement on the (umpiring) job that was coming up the next week.”

“Getting an opportunity to umpire after almost a year was paramount in my mind and I did everything possible to overcome that initial stress of being away from human beings.”

Yoga and its positive impact

Over the last many years, Madan has been known to travel light and does not carry stuff that are not considered essential for an umpiring trip. But this time he had with him multiple gadgets including the Tablet, Laptop and the Kindle. While he did use the gadgets extensively, what gave him positive energy was something else “Through that week, I was fully into Yoga and that gave a sense of peace and helped me feel better.”

And then in the second week of January, the mind switched to cricket on the ground. He recounts the experience on the field “After having been away from people for almost a week, for us to see human faces next to you and to be able to talk to them was a refreshing experience. All of us got a positive feel and energy once we were on the field. Of course, everytime the ball went into the stands, we had to 'sanitise' the ball, a totally new experience for us.”

A difficult phase

As a full time professional, one is expected to undergo these. But only after one experiences the bubble, does one get a feel of challenging life can be "It was only after I spent the week all alone inside the room and without a human in sight, could I relate to the difficulties of players being locked in a bio bubble, away from their families. Looking back, I would say that I did reasonably well facing up to the challenges of a quarantine."

And then a Second Quarantine

His umpiring performances in the domestic circuit over the last year (the period before COVID) led him to officiating in the quarter finals and Semi Final. After the round of league matches, he moved to Ahmedabad for the knock outs and he was back in quarantine again, this time for four days “Having experienced Quarantine once in Bombay, I was better equipped the second time and adapted to it better in Ahmedabad for I knew what was comign and how my life was going to be for a few days."

More Quarantines in February??

For the first time in his cricketing career, Madanagopal has been away from his family for the entire month. He is still is in Ahmedabad and will be returning to Madras only after the final that takes place tomorrow evening. However, it will not be a long time together with the family for it is likely he will be required to get back into another long quarantine ahead of Vijay Hazare or Ranji Trophy tournament that will come up in February and could be away in another bio bubble or two for the entire length of the tournament (a full month if its the one day tournament). And that will not be easy on the body and mind.