{"id":66883,"date":"2021-05-04T00:20:20","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T00:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=66883"},"modified":"2021-05-04T03:01:08","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T03:01:08","slug":"cricket-boss-reacts-to-slaters-absurd-pm-spray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=66883","title":{"rendered":"Cricket boss reacts to Slater's 'absurd' PM spray"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of the Australian Cricketers' Association says the majority of players want to fulfil their commitments at the Indian Premier League<\/a>, having gone there with their "eyes wide open," but "concern" is growing over plans to get them home.<\/p>\n

More than 30 Australians remain at the tournament, including players, commentators and support staff, with Pat Cummins<\/a> and Ben Cutting<\/a> now in isolation, following confirmation two of their Kolkata Knight Riders teammates have tested positive to the virus.<\/p>\n

Three players have already returned to Australia, while commentator Michael Slater<\/a> is now in the Maldives, unable to return home because of the government's move to suspend flights from India until at least May 15.<\/p>\n

Slater launched a furious attack on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison<\/a>, accusing him of having "blood on your hands" and calling for him to "sort out" the quarantine system.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/mj_slats\/status\/1389147322425110541?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Morrison labelled the claims absurd,<\/a> telling Nine's Today<\/em> show that the temporary ban on travel from India was necessary due to that country's huge spike in positive cases.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Radio 2GB<\/a>, the chief executive of the ACA, Todd Greenberg, said Slater's situation highlighted the complexity of the issue.<\/p>\n

"They are strong words, and I think you can sense through Michael his frustration, and I'm sure that frustration will be shared by a lot of Australians who are stranded, not just cricketers, but Australians stranded in other parts of the world who want to come home," he said.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/mj_slats\/status\/1389180433611444228?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

"It's a very difficult one for the government, they're clearly trying to keep us all safe here, but also look after our own who are elsewhere across the world.<\/p>\n

"We're just going to have to work closely with government, we're just going to have to work closely with each other, be patient, and try to find a plan home."<\/p>\n

Last night's scheduled match between Kolkata and Royal Challengers Bangalore was postponed after confirmation of the positive cases amongst the Knight Riders playing group.<\/p>\n

In Delhi, neither Mumbai Indians or Sunrisers Hyderabad trained ahead of tonight's match, after suspected positive cases amongst the ground staff at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium.<\/p>\n

\"Pat<\/p>\n

Greenberg noted that there's likely to be more positive cases reported amongst the IPL cohort.<\/p>\n

"You have to be a realist to understand once it breaks into one of these bubbles that we may see more, but let's hope we don't," he said.<\/p>\n

"I think the BCCI have done a really good job, quickly, to try and isolate as best they can, but we've seen more cases reported in the last two weeks globally for COVID than the last six months, so clearly on the other side of the world there's some real concerns.<\/p>\n

"We're keeping a close eye on it."<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

The Australian government has flagged that flights from India will resume "as soon as possible after May 15" with the IPL scheduled to finish on May 31.<\/p>\n

Greenberg said both Cummins and Cutting are "fine" and feel relatively safe, but explained there's growing anxiety amongst the group in relation to what happens after the tournament finishes.<\/p>\n

"I think the majority are prepared to fulfil their commitments, they went in with their eyes wide open," he said.<\/p>\n

"They do want to see the tournament finished, but they also clearly want to come home at the end, and that's where the concern comes, because there's just not a definitive plan on how that's going to happen at the moment."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of the Australian Cricketers' Association says the majority of players want to fulfil their commitments at the Indian Premier League, having gone there […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66883"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66885,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66883\/revisions\/66885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}