India and Delhi Capitals (DC) off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Thursday (May 27) opened up about his decision to leave the now-suspended Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) mid-way due to the Coronavirus outbreak into his family last month.
The ongoing second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses a challenge to both mental and physical health and every human be it normal people or cricketers have their own struggles and R Ashwin wasn’t different when his family got infected with the deadly virus.
Well, India’s premier spinner had decided to take a break from the IPL 2021 to take care of his family but the tournament was eventually suspended after several COVID-19 cases inside the bio-bubble.
Recently, the veteran cricketer has opened up about his battle with managing a severe COVID-19 outbreak in his family and IPL 14 simultaneously.
Revealing about his decision to leave the IPL 2021 mid-way, Ashwin said almost everyone in his family got infected with Coronavirus and he had sleepless nights worrying about their safety while he was playing in the T20 league.
Ashwin said in a vlog on his YouTube channel: “Almost everyone from my place had got affected due to Covid. In fact, few of my cousins also got admitted and were serious and they somehow recovered.”
The off-spinner was so stressed out with the COVID-19 situation in his family and even he wasn't able to get any sleep, but still played for Delhi Capitals (DC) without adequate rest in the tournament.
He further explained, “I couldn’t sleep for almost 8-9 days. Since I couldn’t sleep, it was really stressful for me. I was playing matches without getting any sleep. And since I found it really taxing, I had to quit IPL and go home midway. In fact, when I left, around that time, I had thoughts on whether I will be able to play cricket thereafter. But still, I did what was required at that point of time.”
However, the 34-year-old was ready to return to the IPL 14 after his family’s situation improved, but the BCCI indefinitely postponed the tournament due to the Covid-19 crisis in India earlier this month.
Ashwin signed off by saying, “I thought there won’t be any cricket for some time. Even IPL got postponed. In between, when people in my house started recovering, I thought of coming back into the IPL and that’s when IPL was called off.”
(With PTI Inputs)
