After stalling the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021, the overseas players had to fly back to their homes immediately.
While the English players had a hotel booked for their quarantine, Australians were stranded as travel from India has been red-flagged by their Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Many of the Aussies took to the Maldives and Sri Lanka, where they got their connecting flights for Down Under.
In such uncertainties, South African all-rounder Chris Morris reached his home safely on Thursday and took a sigh of relief before disclosing the dread of the situation.
Morris revealed how everyone had speculated the cancellation of the T20 extravaganza when the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) vs Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) clash was cancelled on Monday.
“The moment we heard that, when players are testing positive, inside the bubble, then everyone starts asking questions. The alarm bells definitely started going off for all of us. By Monday when they postponed that game (KKR vs RCB), we knew the tournament was under pressure to continue,” Morris told IOL.
The Proteas star further added that it was RR team director Kumar Sangakkara who communicated to him about the suspension of the cash-rich league.
“I was chatting to our team doctor, whose room was across the hallway from my mine in the hotel, and Kumar (Sangakarra) came around the corner, and drew his finger across his throat, and then we knew it was over. And then it was chaos!” the 34-year-old asserted.
Adumbrating the chaotic environment, Morris revealed that initially, the English players didn’t have their quarantining accommodations ready for them.
“The England guys especially were panicking because they needed to isolate in hotels in England first, and apparently there weren’t any rooms,” the Pretoria-born divulged.
Concluding the interview, the highest-paid IPL player thanked Royals’ management.
“The Royals’ management were brilliant, they had their fingers on the pulse, made everyone feel as comfortable as possible.I know poor Gerald (Coetzee) was panicking a bit, I mean he’s only 20 and all this is going on. I tried to keep him under my wing a bit and made sure he was ready when the 12.30 am pick up came at the hotel. It was eerie, it was just a handful of us in that whole hotel at the time,” Morris added.
