Australians have turned on the nation’s highly-paid cricket stars after they begged for a charter flight back from Covid-ravaged India, declaring they should not be given special treatment after willingly taking a risk by heading overseas.
Batsman Chris Lynn, who is earning about $357,000 playing in the Indian Premier League for the Mumbai Indians, has led calls for Cricket Australia to organise a plane to get players out of the South Asian nation amidst a catastrophic second wave.
But his pleas for the federal government to let players home because they will be vaccinated next week and have been living in a bubble have been met with fury by Australians who believe they should not be given preferential treatment.
A recent Daily Mail Australia poll asking ‘Should the stranded Aussie cricketers get special treatment’ attracted more than 1,300 comments within a few short hours, with 90 per cent – or 1,249 people – responding ‘no’.
Readers were quick to voice their anger at the cricketer’s comments after Australia slammed its borders shut with India because travellers returning from the country accounted for the vast majority of Covid infections in hotel quarantine.
Australian cricket player Chris Lynn (pictured with girlfriend Karlie Armansin) has requested a charter flight out of India once the Indian Premier League is finished
Australians reacted with fury at Lynn’s call for players to be flown out of India on a charter plane, declaring they needed to wait their turn before coming home
A recent Daily Mail Australia poll asking ‘Should the stranded Aussie cricketers get special treatment’ attracted more than 1,300 comments
‘Pay for your own charter flight,’ read one comment on Facebook.
Another said: ‘I love how cricketers want all their millions but then expect the rest of the country to bend over backwards for them’.
‘Even if Cricket Australia hire a private jet… why should us Australians allow them back in? The rule is NO-ONE comes in from India. They can f**k right off. I don’t see them giving us any of their millions that they earned over in India.’
One reader pointed out ‘You chose to take a risk, because of greed, wait your turn, like everyone else’.
Lynn urged Cricket Australia to arrange the charter flight after the IPL finishes next month, in a plea made moments before the government’s border announcement was made official on Tuesday.
Cricket Australia had asked players a day earlier about their health and travel plans amid the escalating Covid outbreak in India.
‘I texted back that as Cricket Australia make 10 per cent of every IPL contract, was there a chance we could spend that money this year on a charter flight once the tournament is over?’ Lynn told News Corp.
Lynn revealed that he and others are now due to get a Covid vaccine next week to continue playing in the IPL and said the government should take that into account.
Steve Smith (pictured with wife Dani Willis) is among 17 Australian cricketers playing in the Indian Premier League
Smith has been playing for the Delhi Capitals in the tournament. He is pictured on an internal flight between games
David Warner (right) Steve Smith and Pat Cummins are among several of Australia’s biggest cricket stars stranded in India. Warner is pictured with New Zealand star Kane Williamson on a previous flight
‘I know there are people worse off than us. But we are going from a really tight bubble and are getting vaccinated next week so hopefully the government will let us get home on a private charter,’ he said.
He insisted the players were not ‘asking for shortcuts’ and acknowledged ‘we signed up knowing the risks’ but said ‘it would be great to get home’ once the Indian Premier League finished.
As many as 9,000 Australians have been stranded in India by the government’s ban on flights from the nation until May 15.
Lynn is one of 17 Australian cricket stars including test players David Warner, Steve Smith and Pat Cummins left behind in India.
Smith last year purchased a $6.6million home in affluent Vaucluse, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, while Cummins last month splashed $9.5million on a place in Bronte.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the cricket players will not jump the queue, even when repatriation flights from India recommence.
‘They’ve travelled their privately under their own arrangements. This wasn’t part of an Australian tour,’ Mr Morrison said.
‘And they’re under their own resources and they’ll be using those resources, I’m sure, to see them return to Australia in accordance with our own arrangements.’
The Indian Premier League group stage ends on May 23, with the final to be held on May 30.
The Australian cricketers playing in the Indian Premier League are joined by coaches Ricky Ponting and Simon Katich and commentators Brett Lee, Matthew Hayden and Michael Slater.
Both Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association are monitoring the situation, with both organisations in constant contact with players in case an emergency evacuation is required.
As it stands, players organise their own flights out of India given the tournament does not involve Australian cricket authorities and is held during players’ holiday period.
Australian Test vice-captain Pat Cummins (pictured with partner Becky Boston) donated $50,000 to India’s Covid crisis
Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured) said the cricketers are ‘under their own resources and they’ll be using those resources, I’m sure, to see them return to Australia’
On signing a no-objection certificate with CA to play in the tournament, players were told there would not be chartered flights home – but they could organise a private plane.
‘We will assist where possible. We will continue to liaise closely with the Australian government,’ Cricket Australia said in a joint statement with the players’ union.
IPL boss Hemang Amin wrote to players and staff to ease growing anxiety and to advise them Covid tests will be carried out every second day.
‘You are totally safe within the bubble. You are also playing for something much more important… humanity,’ Amin wrote.
Ricky Ponting, who is coach of the Delhi Capitals, described the situation on the ground as ‘grim’.
‘This IPL, probably more than any other, has become more about what’s happening on the outside than what’s happening here. We right now are probably the safest people in the country being in the bubbles that we are in,’ Ponting said.
‘We will just keep our fingers crossed and hope people remain safe. The players are taking the best care of their families where they can from the outside, and we look after what we can do here.’
Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson became the first Australians to leave the IPL since India’s Covid crisis worsened.
Tye was hastily flown out of India on Sunday night after requesting a release from the Rajasthan Royals on personal grounds.
David Warner (pictured with wife Candice) is among Australia’s cricket stars stranded in India
Ricky Ponting, who is in India as coach of the Delhi Capitals, described the situation as ‘grim’
On Monday, Royal Challengers Bangalore announced that leg-spinner Zampa and paceman Richardson had also been given permission to return home for personal reasons.
West Australian Tye was able to fly to Doha, before getting a connecting flight to Australia to start two weeks in quarantine.
His decision is understood to have had more to do with bubble fatigue, after having lived in hubs virtually uninterrupted since Australia’s trip to England last August.
The IPL is continuing in a Covid-safe bubble but Australian Daniel Sams caught the virus on arrival in India.
Cummins, Australia’s Test vice-captain, donated $50,000 to go towards more oxygen supplies for India’s hospitals.
The star fast bowler encouraged other IPL cricketers to help out in India’s desperate fight against coronavirus.
‘At times like this it is easy to feel helpless. I’ve certainly felt that of late,’ Cummins wrote on social media.
‘But I hope by making this public appeal we can all channel our emotions into action that will bring light into people’s lives. I know my donation isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but I hope it will make a difference to someone.’
Cummins noted there was quite a bit of discussion about whether it was appropriate to continue playing the IPL as the crisis deepens.
Plane passengers remove their PPE kit and put it in a dustbin, when entering the Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport in Agartala, India
Relatives and municipal workers prepare to bury the body of a person who died of Covid-19 in Gauhati, India, on Sunday. India’s morgues ran out of stretchers and patients were seen wandering the streets in search of hospital beds
His donation inspired former Australian bowler Brett Lee to donate ‘one bitcoin to Crypto Relief to help with the purchase of oxygen supplies across India’.
‘India has always been like a second home for me,’ Lee posted on Twitter.
‘The love and affection that I have got from the people of this country both during my professional career and even after my retirement, holds a special place in my heart.
‘It saddens me deeply to see people suffering due to the ongoing pandemic.
‘I feel privileged to be in a position of making a difference.’
The Indian Government believed the IPL provided some welcome enjoyment for the people at a difficult time.
Mr Morrison suspended all direct commercial flights and chartered repatriation flights on Tuesday afternoon as India suffers a huge surge in cases and deaths.
In this aerial picture taken on April 26, 2021, burning pyres of victims who lost their lives due to the Covid-19 coronavirus are seen at a cremation ground in New Delhi
He said eight planned chartered flights to the Northern Territory will be delayed until after mid-May and commercial flights may remain banned beyond then.
Stranded Aussies will not even be able to book flights via a third country, with major air hubs Singapore, Malaysia and Qatar also banning travel.
They may be stuck for some time because the resumption of chartered flights – which are expected to be wildly oversubscribed – will prioritise vulnerable Australians.
The ban came after India suffered 2,812 Covid deaths and 352,991 cases on Monday, breaking the world record for daily cases for the fifth day in a row.
Mr Morrison said the ban was required because of the sharp ‘jump’ in positive cases entering Australia’s quarantine system.
A man runs past the burning funeral pyres of those who died from coronavirus during a mass cremation in New Delhi
He said 95 per cent of cases in the federal quarantine facility near Darwin were from India.
‘(Medical) advice is we need to slow that pace significantly over the next few weeks to ensure that we can maintain the health of people in that facility,’ he said.
Mr Morrison insisted he was not abandoning Australians because there were plans in place for repatriation flights to restart in three weeks’ time.
‘We don’t think the answer is to forsake those Australians in India and just shut them off, as some have suggested. We will resume the repatriation flights from India,’ he said.
The Prime Minister has been under pressure from some state premiers to halt all flights to protect the hotel quarantine system, which faltered last week prompting a three-day lockdown of Perth over the weekend.
Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan demanded the federal government use defence bases and migration detention facilities instead of hotels.
But Mr Morrison said the quarantine system was working well, adding ‘99.9 per cent success rate I think is pretty good’.
Infections in the past 24 hours rose to 352,991, with overcrowded hospitals in Delhi and elsewhere turning away patients after running out of supplies of medical oxygen and beds
People stand in a queue to receive free food being distributed by a Hindu voluntary organisation amid Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in Hyderabad
A patient breathes with the help of oxygen outside a parked car along the roadside amid Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in Ghaziabad in India as the country’s Covid crisis worsens
‘I don’t think there’s a country in the world who would not want a quarantine system that has been working as effectively as that,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Australia will send oxygen tanks, gloves, masks, goggles, gowns and face shields to India as the nation grapples with its growing humanitarian disaster.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation in India was ‘heartbreaking’, adding the WHO is sending extra staff and supplies including oxygen concentrator devices.
The death toll is so high that Indians have been forced to set up mass cremation sites to burn the dead. Hospitals are at breaking point and are running out of oxygen.
India’s new coronavirus infections hit a record peak for a fifth day on Monday as countries including Britain, Germany and the United States pledged to send urgent medical aid to fight the crisis overwhelming its hospitals.