The perfect exit route for cricketers after IPL suspended

RR’s Jos Buttler along with other England teammates will be in a government-approved quarantine hotel in London

Barring four cricketers and two coaches, all the other Indians had left for their respective homes hours after the IPL was indefinitely postponed on Tuesday due to bio-secure bubble breaches. Most players had already reached home by Wednesday.

Delhi Capitals' Amit Mishra, KKR's Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier are quarantined at their hotels in Ahmedabad with a medical team monitoring them, while Sunrisers Hyderabad's Wriddhiman Saha, CSK's coaches Mike Hussey and L Balaji, who also tested positive for Covid-19, are in Delhi.

It is learnt that the BCCI gave its nod for the other players to disperse following their negative RT-PCR tests.

IPL's overseas players were also on their way back home with as many as eight English cricketers having already landed in their country on Wednesday morning. The English players to have touched down at London's Heathrow airport are Moeen Ali, Sam Curran (Chennai Super Kings), Tom Curran, Chris Woakes, Sam Billings (Delhi Capitals), Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow (Sunrisers Hyderabad) and Jos Buttler (Rajasthan Royals).

They will now quarantine in government-approved hotels before leaving for their respective homes.

Three England cricketers - Dawid Malan, Chris Jordan (both Punjab Kings) and England's limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan (KKR) are expected to leave India by Friday or Saturday.

The New Zealand cricketers and support staff--17 of them - will split into two groups. The likes of Kane Williamson (SRH), Trent Boult (MI), Kyle Jamieson (RCB) and others will fly to the United Kingdom, most likely with Morgan & Co, for their Test series against England followed by the World Test Championship final against India from June 18 at Southampton. Williamson will also be a part of The Hundred to be played from July 21 in the UK. Some members of the IPL's coaching staff like CSK's Stephen Fleming, KKR's Brendon McCullum, RCB's Mike Hesson, MI's Shane Bond and others will go back to New Zealand via a chartered flight, which has been arranged by a couple of franchises.

SA, Windies players leave

It is learnt that players from South Africa (11), West Indies (9), Afghanistan (3) and Bangladesh (2) also left Indian shores on Tuesday.

The biggest concern for the BCCI is ensuring the safe return of the Australian contingent, the largest, with close to 40 members that include cricketers, support staff and commentators. With Australia closing their border for travellers from India till May 15 following the explosion of Covid-19 cases in the last few weeks, the BCCI has decided to take the Aussies, barring Hussey, to Maldives via chartered flights.

Chartered flight for Aussies

A franchisee official told mid-day: "A chartered flight is set to leave from Ahmedabad on Thursday wherein Australian players and support staff members of Punjab Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals [all based in Ahmedabad] would leave for Maldives. They will quarantine there for 14 days before flying out to Australia."

A resort has already been booked where only the Australian contingent will be staying. It is not clear whether the BCCI, the IPL teams or the players will have to bear the extra cost of this detour.

Talking to reporters in Sydney on Tuesday, CA's interim chief Nick Hockley said: "The BCCI has been working on a range of options. That's now narrowed down to the
Maldives and Sri Lanka."

29
No. of games played in IPL-14 before the league was suspended