Former England skipper Nasser Hussain has reacted after IPL 2021 was suspended by the BCCI and the IPL governing council unanimously. They arrived at the decision after several players from various IPL franchises tested COVID positive forcing matches to be postponed. However, BCCI Vice-President Rajeev Shukla confirmed that the season has been postponed and not cancelled and in the process quashing such reports.
Meanwhile, Nasser Hussain, in his column for Daily Mail wrote about how it was not a pleasant sight for the players to be playing knowing that people are dying outside.
“There was no option other than to call off the Indian Premier League. Not after the bio-secure bubbles had been breached in so many places. Enough was enough. This has become far bigger than a game of cricket. The players are not stupid nor insensitive. They would have been fully aware of what has been going on in India.”
“They would have seen on their TVs people pleading for hospital beds and oxygen. They would have seen unused ambulances waiting outside cricket grounds and wondered whether it was right for them to carry on playing. And they would have been uncomfortable,” wrote Hussain in his column for the Daily Mail.
Further in his column, Hussain said that the players are wrong to be blamed for playing in IPL 2021 while adding that the season should not have been hosted in India amid the COVID crisis.
IPL 2021 Should Have Been Hosted In The UAE: Nasser Hussain
“It has been unedifying at times watching this tournament when people are dying just up the road from there. I won’t criticize the players, but it had to be called off. The mistake was made in having the tournament in India in the first place. Six months ago, they held an IPL in the United Arab Emirates and it went brilliantly” Hussain wrote.
Meanwhile, there are travel ban imposed on the England players as of now. 11 England players who played in IPL 2021 will be staying back in India for another week till the ECB and the BCCI finalise the path through which the players can safely travel back to the UK. Earlier the RCB denied sending chartered flights for the return of the players leaving the onus on the BCCI and individual IPL franchises to work out the logistics and ensure the safe travel out of India.
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