IPL 2021: After Reaching Australia, Mike Hussey Lifts Lid on his Covid-19 Nightmare in India

After finally making it to Australia, coach Mike Hussey can take a sigh of relief. After the suspension of IPL 2021, Hussey was one of the members of a franchise to have tested positive for Covid-19, and had to stay back in quarantine in India, till he tested negative, while all the other Aussies headed to Maldives.

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Finally, Hussey touched down in Australia on Monday after boarding a flight from Doha, before being taken into quarantine in Australia, where he will spend two weeks. He arrived on the same day as the other Aussies in IPL, despite a 10-day battle with Covid.

Hussey, though was unsure when he would overcome the virus.

“I wasn’t thinking about (getting home) too much to start with,” he told foxsports.com.au on Tuesday. “I was focusing on just trying to get better again, really.”

Hussey started feeling unwell after the IPL moved from Mumbai to Delhi, where the bio-bubble of the team could have been breached.

“My initial test came up as a weak positive, and we were sort of hoping the next would be negative and it’d be alright, but unfortunately I got retested the next day and that came back positive,” he said.

“To be honest, I had already started feeling some of the symptoms and so I was thinking, ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got it’.

“Plus I was sitting next to the bowling coach on the bus a few times, so I thought, ‘If he’s got it then there’s a pretty good chance I’ve got it as well’.”

Hussey is still unsure where he got the virus from though. But he thinks it could be at the airport where all the staff wasn’t part of the bubble. “So there was a risk there,” Hussey said, adding: “It (also) could have been at the ground; there was ground staff while we were there training and on game day.

“There was certainly more risk once we left that Mumbai bubble.”

After testing positive, Hussey said, “I wasn’t surprised.

“I was a bit like, ‘Oh gosh, why me’, but I didn’t really think too much at all. I thought it was a bit of a shame.”

Hussey did experience some symptoms and said was very tired. “But I certainly wasn’t worried about my breathing or things like that,” he added. “It was just a bit annoying, really.

“Looking back on it now, it probably did knock me around a bit more than I thought at the time. At the time I thought I didn’t feel great, but not life-threatening or anything like that. But it does take its toll on you after a while I guess.”

After testing negative, the initial plan for Hussey was to send him to Maldives, but the latter banned flights from India eventually. The other plan was to board flight to Doha from Chennai, and then to Australia.

“That’s what we ended up going with in the end,” said Hussey.

“We were a bit nervous obviously with flights being cancelled left, right and centre, but thankfully it all went quite smoothly and it’s good to be back.

“Even once we arrived in Sydney, the police and the staff at the airport were all really friendly and made you feel as comfortable as they could because it’s obviously not the nicest experience.”

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He continued, “It’s disappointing because the tournament was going really well and we felt secure in that first bubble.”

“So it’s really a shame that coronavirus was able to penetrate the bubble because there was some fantastic cricket being played and the tournament was really set up well for the second half, but unfortunately we couldn’t finish it off.”

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• covid-19
• CSK
• ipl
• IPL 2021
• Mike Hussey