New Zealand as well as Mumbai Indians all-rounder Jimmy Neesham feels the rest of the IPL 2021 matches and the T20 World Cup wouldn’t take place in India this year as the country is currently fighting against the deadly COVID-19 virus. Notably, IPL this year got postponed due to COVID-19 cases inside the bio-bubble. More than 400,000 cases have been reporting on a daily basis whereas at least 4000 deaths on average taking place as well.
“If it did start up again, I doubt the IPL would be in India again,” said Neesham told Newshub. “I think we’ve already seen plans for the T20 World Cup to move out of India later in the year and they’re going to be ultra-cautious about that sort of thing.”
James Neesham feels that the players got infected in the bio-security bubble because they were travelling across the country.
“Even though we were flying on chartered planes, we have to go through customs, hand your details over to people, walk through terminals, so there were always going to be pinch-points there,” he said. “We obviously don’t know yet exactly how teams were infiltrated, but… it’s such a difficult prospect to keep everything perfect and when you’ve got so many guys that are close to each other, there are going to be social interactions after games.”
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“Once one team has it, you start looking back through your last week at who you talked to and who you shook hands with. It certainly gets your mind racing. For me, I signed up for the IPL knowing what it might be like. I felt like it was an obligation, I made the commitment to go and never had any thoughts of pulling out individually before the tournament finished,” he said.
“Guys will have different opinions on that, but it’s my job, I’m a professional and you have plenty of times you tour countries you’re not that keen on going to, but it’s about getting on the field and getting the job done,” he further added.
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However, the all-rounder added that no one would have thought the situation got worse so suddenly in India. Notably, the IPL was suspended last Tuesday after several players along with support staffs started effecting by the deadly virus within a space of 48 hours.
Meanwhile, he said that he didn’t expect that the tournament would postpone as he felt there would be a few lockdowns and a few games wouldn’t happen like in other organisations, like the NBA etc. However, he also admitted that they had no option but to cancel it as it spread so quickly in so many different teams at the same time. However, as of now, there is no news if the rest of the games will take place anytime soon.
