Can Canberra solve Cricket Australia's virus crisis?

We are writing one last time, asking you to consider bringing your fifth and final Ashes Test match to the pristine confines of Manuka Oval.

And while you're at it, feel free to toss a few more Big Bash games our way.

If this utterly peculiar week in cricket has taught us anything, it's that Omicron is here to stay.

It couldn't quite save England's Ashes campaign at the MCG, but for a moment COVID threatened to jeopardise the integrity of the third Test until Scott Boland beat the virus to it.

We were shocked on Thursday to hear Ashes match referee David Boon was the latest on the Ashes circuit to have contracted the virus.

If a man capable of consuming 53 cans of beer on a flight to England is unable to parry Omicron, then what hope do the rest of us have?

Gabba hero Travis Head has now tested positive, as have a bunch of Sydney Thunder players just as they were preparing to play the Adelaide Strikers on New Year's Eve.

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But, we digress.

Here is our proposal: We would like to offer our services to save you all a trip across the Bass Strait to Hobart.

If containment is now the new strategy, prevention having fallen by the wayside, then surely the logistics of a trip down the Hume Highway reduces Omicron's ability to keep bouncing across society like a teenage grasshopper.

And just to reiterate, we have lights at Manuka Oval so it can still be played as a day nighter. We hosted our first and only Test match in 2019 against Australia, and did ever so well.

At the conclusion of the Sydney Test, shroud all of the requisite players, staff and officials in an impenetrable bubble and drive them three and a half hours down the road to the nation's capital.

That same convoy can include the many tonnes of broadcast equipment required to beam the vision and audio of this one-sided Ashes series all around the world.

Players can prepare in solitude at the Manuka nets. They can play out the five (more likely three) days in the nation's capital and then break off into smaller bubbles to fulfill their next cricketing commitments.

Alternatively, everyone can travel to Sydney airport, jump on a plane potentially requiring a transfer in Melbourne, disembark at Hobart airport and then make their way to Bellerive Oval.

I'd be licking my lips if I was an Omicron viral particle in that situation.

We can potentially solve your Big Bash problem, too. The incoming fixturing headache this month will be much worse than whatever we experience on Saturday morning, as some of us, no doubt, attempt to emulate Boon's peerless drinking feats.

As proved last summer, Manuka Oval is a brilliant venue for Twenty20 cricket. Almost 10,000 of us turned out Tuesday night to cheer on the Sydney Thunder's win over Perth.

There's still plenty of available dates in January where we could step in and stage some more games if it meant reducing the travel strain and thus the chances of more players, staff and officials catching the virus.

We don't mean to sound facetious, Cricket Australia. Canberra could genuinely offer the solutions to your summer of COVID, and we were so well behaved in 2021 during our lockdown, and subsequent vaccination campaign.

Let's talk, shall we?

Sincerely,

Ken Behrens