Michael Hussey and the rest of Australia contingent set to land home on Monday

The Australian contingent will have to quarantine before being allowed to go home.

38 Australia players, coaches, media and support staff were stuck in Maldives | TwitterMichael Hussey and the remaining Australia contingent will be back home on Monday. This includes 38 Australian players, coaches, and media, who were stuck in the Maldives after the IPL 2021 was suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the tournament.

Following a series of Covid-19 positive tests, Hussey was unable to join the Maldives group after the postponement of the IPL but returned a negative test on Thursday night India time. He has now been cleared to return to Australian soil on a commercial flight via Doha.

The Australian contingent in the Maldives consists of players like Pat Cummins, David Warner, and Steve Smith amongst others, who will travel home to hotel quarantine in Sydney, on a BCCI charter flight that will also stopover in Perth once it reaches Australian airspace.

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The return of the cricketers, coaches, and media have been secured over the incoming arrival caps put in place for overseas travelers to Australia, following negotiations between Cricket Australia, the Australian Cricketers Association, and state and federal governments.

"The public will see our best Australian cricketers as almost superheroes. They're brilliant athletes, great cricketers but they're human beings [too]. Some of them are fathers and husbands, and they're under enormous amounts of stress. Some deal with it differently.

This will probably be an experience they will never forget. We will help them when they come home. Some will cope with it really well, others will need support and counseling and that's what we'll do,” Todd Greenberg, the ACA chief executive had said on May 5.

The ACA has already advised its players to complete due diligence before signing up for T20 leagues during the pandemic.

A federal government pause on the return of Australians from India concluded on Saturday, with a series of repatriation flights for the first portion of some 9000 citizens beginning over the weekend.

(ESPNCricinfo inputs)

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 16 May, 2021

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