IPL 2021 Suspended Highlights: Mumbai Indians Reveal Travel Plans to Send Back Contingent Home Safely

20:21 (IST)

MI Announce Travel Plans: Mumbai Indians have announced how they plan to provide safe passage to their entire contingent via chartered flights. In a series of tweets on Thursday evening, the five-time IPL winners revealed that: 

#Australian players and support staff members will fly to Maldives on a special charter. MI has made arrangements for their 14 days quarantine stay in Maldives before flying them back to Australia.

#Mumbai & Ahmedabad based players and support staff members will return home via Ahmedabad on a charter flight. The Cabin crew has completed 7 days quarantine at the team hotel in Delhi.

#Head Coach Mahela Jayawardene will also complete his quarantine in Maldives before returning to Sri Lanka.

#Players and support staff from New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean will fly to Auckland, Johannesburg and Trinidad on their respective charter flights arranged by MI.

#Indian players have embarked on their journey back to their hometowns. All Covid-19 related travel & safety protocols have been diligently adhered.

#MI has consulted the concerned cricket boards through BCCI & updated them about the travel arrangements made for their respective players.

#MI management will stay back in Delhi till all members of the MI contingent reach their respective destinations safely.

19:10 (IST)

SRH mentor Laxman Still Wondering How Saha Got Infected: On Tuesday, soon after reports emerged that Sunrisers Hyderabad's wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha and Delhi Capitals' Amit Mishra have tested positive for coronavirus, IPL 2021 was suspended with immediate effect. However, Laxman is still wondering where and how Saha could have been infected since they were taking all necessary precautions. "Wriddhi was slated to play Sunday's match against Rajasthan Royals but felt a little under the weather on Saturday night. We immediately placed him in isolation and, despite our prayers, he returned a positive test. We are still wondering how, despite taking all precautions, Wriddhi got infected," Laxman wrote in his column for Times of India.

18:34 (IST)

Secondly, the existing schedule may leave little room for the organisers to squeeze in the event even if they conduct multiple matches within a day. India’s tour of England is scheduled to end by mid of September after which Eoin Morgan’s men will be flying to Pakistan for a short T20I series.

18:23 (IST)

The proposal sounds interesting on paper but it will have to deal with various logistical hurdles including the coronavirus pandemic. While it seems unlikely that the health crisis may nearly cease to exit by September, even in the scenario of it improving drastically, there still will be a need to fly in players from across the world followed by quarantine requirements among others.

18:16 (IST)

According to ESPNcricinfo, MCC, Surrey, Warwickshire and Lancashire have shot the letter to ECB about their plans to complete the event in two weeks in the second half of September this year. UAE is also been floated around as an option since it has already hosted IPL in the past including last year when the entire season was held there across there venues.

18:03 (IST)

Now, reports are surfacing, suggesting that the remainder of IPL could be held in the UK in September. The top brass of the BCCI and IPL Governing Council maintains that the league hasn’t been canceled and as soon as they consider it safe enough, it will resume.

17:26 (IST)

Not only him, but a list of high-profile ex-cricketers had also got their Covid vaccines. Sunil Gavaskar, Madan Lal, Chetan Sharma and Kapil Dev feature in the list.

17:12 (IST)

India opener Shikhar Dhawan has gone ahead and gotten vaccinated for Covid-19. He has also urged others to get vaccinated at the earliest. 

16:39 (IST)

Players have started heading back home now, and some through chartered flights. Almost all Aussies too have left India, except for Michael Hussey, who might stay here for some more time, since he is Covid positive. 

15:56 (IST)

“Yeah the players’ return has been sorted out,” Sourav said. “There are close to 40 Australians in the IPL comprising players, support staff and commentators. They will be flying to the Maldives today (Wednesday), be on a 10-day quarantine there and then leave for their country. These are non-issues and we will fulfil our commitments to all concerned.”

15:56 (IST)

Sourav Ganguly spoke to Telegraph on the financial implications of the suspension  “If we fail to complete the IPL, the loss will be close to Rs 2,500 crore. That is going by early estimates. There has got to be a lot of shuffling. Only a day has passed since we suspended the IPL. We have to speak to other boards and see if a window can be made available before the T20 World Cup... Lot of things are involved and we will slowly start working on them. When we started the tournament in Dubai, there were close to 700 cases in the UAE which increased by a few hundred in the later stages. Here it’s close to 4 lakh today. This proliferation of Covid-19 cases has been a major issue

14:55 (IST)

Mumbai Indians have released a video where the defending champs have hailed the decision to suspend the league. Also seen in the video are skipper Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Adam Milne, Jayant Yadav, Shane Bond and Robin Singh. In the video Rohit said, “In the light of everything that is happening around the country, I think it’s a very good decision.” – @rohitsharma45. Paltan, thank you for your unrelenting support throughout the tournament! Till we meet again, we hope you keep staying safe and strong.”

14:10 (IST)

The other big problem though would be the availability of the overseas players in September. Most of the big names would be on national duty in preparation for the World T20 next month. Will the BCCI and the franchises agree to host the remainder of the IPL without some of the star foreign players? That will completely change the dynamics, team structure and composition of the various participating teams and give an unfair advantage/disadvantage as the case might be to a few franchises.

13:45 (IST)

There are two big issues for the BCCI in conducting the tournament in September in India. Firstly, it is the safety of the players as there is another (third) wave of the pandemic which is expected to hit the country later in the year. No one is quite sure what the timeline would be and this uncertainty can create havoc in pre-scheduling an event which has already been rescheduled. However, there is an option to host the remainder of the tournament in the UAE which has largely controlled the Covid-19 pandemic. The Emirates hosted the 2020 edition of the IPL successfully in a secured bio-bubble.

13:06 (IST)

“See, we have better contacts in Chennai, so it was decided to fly both Hussey and Balaji into Chennai in an air ambulance to ensure that if the need arises, we have the facilities ready. Fortunately, they have no symptoms and both are doing fine. But yes, Hussey has to wait to get a negative report before he can leave India. We will arrange a charter when he is safe to fly,” a CSK official explained to news agency ANI.

13:04 (IST)

In the latest development, CSK are going to send coaching staff members, L Balaji and Hussey to Chennai through air ambulance. 

12:55 (IST)

Meanwhile, former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar has come out with another video, in which he has said, that he had predicted that the IPL 2021 will be suspended. He had also requested the BCCI to spend the money of IPL, on saving lives of the people. 

11:54 (IST)

IPL 2021 Suspended Live Updates: IPL 2021 has been marred by Covid-19 positive cases. It all started on April 5, when 14 members of the broadcast team had tested positive, who were staying in Four Seasons Hotel in Mumbai. Also, a total of 11 ground-staffers from the Wankhede Stadium had tested positive. Unlike the players and teams, they don’t stay in the bio-secure bubbles.

11:07 (IST)

RCB and India skipper Virat Kohli jumped in Covid-relief work within 24 hours of IPL 2021 getting suspended. Kohli met Yuva Sena member Rahul Kanal in Mumbai as he proposed his plans on the behalf of his foundation which he spearheads alongside his wife Anushka Sharma.  A picture of this meeting has been shared on Twitter:

11:06 (IST)

IPL Suspended Live Updates: Broadcaster Neroli Meadows and former Aus international Brett Lee flying out