Veteran India and Delhi Capital (DC) off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has described the six-day quarantine period in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as one of the worst times of his life ahead of the upcoming 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.
All the IPL teams are currently in the different hotels in the UAE with the tournament scheduled to be held in three bio-secure venues across Sharjah, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi from 19th September.
Given the global Coronavirus outbreak, the teams were required to quarantine for six days at their team hotels and test negative for COVID-19 on days 1, 3, and 6 upon landing in the UAE before the teams were allowed to enter the bio-secure bubble and begin their training for the upcoming T20 carnival here.
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On Thursday (September 3), Ashwin has shared his quarantine experience in the UAE in a post-training video uploaded by Delhi Capitals on its official Twitter handle.
Ashwin said: “I was at home for the last five-six months. But I had people to fall upon. I was doing my own work on my YouTube channel, trying to keep myself occupied on Instagram Live and all that.”
The spinner further explained, “But for me, those six days can easily be called out as one of the worst times in my life. Because the first day was like I was looking out and I can see Dubai Lake.
I look to my right, I can see the Burj Khalifa. It is wonderful but how long can one sit outside and watch? And it is extremely hot. Generally, I don’t watch a lot of mobile phones, I don’t use it for a long time. I have a cap of about two to two and a half hours. But all of a sudden I am seeing today, that my mobile usage for the last week or so has been six hours.”
Meanwhile, Ashwin said there is a good atmosphere within the players in the DC dressing room and he is excited to play in the tournament.
He signed off by saying, “It is very energetic and there is hardly anything ill-spoken of. There has been nothing negative that has happened so far. There are a lot of youngsters, so the mood in the camp is extremely exuberant and I am looking forward to it.”
(With Hindustan Times Inputs)
