Cricketer-turned-policeman Joginder Sharma on serving the country during COVID-19 crisis

Cricketer-turned-police officer Joginder Sharma has said how it feels while serving the public as a cop during this need of the hour. India is currently under a three-week lockdown which had been imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in order to tackle the deadly COVID-19 that has made a huge impact all over the world. Joginder is serving as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP)  in Hisar district of Haryana.

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'Need to be ready': Joginder Sharma

While speaking to a cricket news website, the former medium pacer said that his day starts around six in the morning after which he spoke about one of the days when he had worked from 9 am to 8 pm. Meanwhile, Sharma also went on to say that he needs to be ready for emergency calls and effectively, he is available for duty 24 hours.  The 2007 T20 World Cup winner also mentioned that the area that he needs to oversee is mostly in the rural belt of Hisar and as of now,  it involves guarding various check-posts and instructing not just truck and bus drivers but also common people about the virus.

Joginder, who had bowled that memorable final over during the ICC World T20 2007 summit clash against arch-rivals Pakistan added that although he lives in Rohtak, which is just 110km from Hisar which only takes one-and-a-half hours to reach by road, he has decided not to go home because he does not want to take a chance as he comes in contact with people throughout the day due to which he does not wish to put his family at risk by going back home.

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The impact of COVID-19 on sporting events

All the major sporting events have either been postponed or cancelled due to the global pandemic. The big global events like the UEFA Euro Cup 2020 and the Tokyo Olympic Games have been postponed to the summer of 2021 while the showpiece event of world tennis i.e. the Wimbledon 2020 has been cancelled for the first time since World War II. 

Coming back to cricket, the semi-final and final matches of the ongoing edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) have been postponed as well. The bilateral ODI series between India and South Africa have been rescheduled at a later date whereas, the IPL 2020 that was supposed to get underway on March 29 has tentatively been postponed to April 15.

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