IPL 2020: Teams to spend Rs 1 crore to fly 22 cricketers from England to Dubai
Steve Smith, David Warner, Aaron Finch, Eoin Morgan and others will be flying together from Manchester to Dubai to take part in IPL 2020. Seven teams will spend nearly Rs 1 crore for charter flight
FollowMumbai: Seven Indian Premier League (IPL) teams will spend nearly Rs 1 crore to fly Australian and England players from Manchester to the UAE so that the cricketers avoid quarantine and straightaway play in IPL 2020 which commences on September 19.
According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, barring Mumbai Indians (MI), the rest of the franchises have come together and hired a charter plane for more than 100,000 pounds to transport 22 players from Australia and England who are currently involved in a limited-overs series.
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As soon as the series ends on September 16 with the third and final ODI, all the 22 cricketers including Steve Smith (Rajasthan Royals), David Warner (Sunrisers Hyderabad), Aaron Finch (Royal Challengers Bangalore), Pat Cummins, Eoin Morgan (both for Kolkata Knight Riders), Jos Buttler (Rajasthan), will fly from Manchester to Dubai to take part in IPL 2020. Among the 22, none of them are with MI.
The arrangement is made so that the players are transported from the bio-bubble in England to the bio-bubble environment in the UAE. This will help the players to be exempted from the mandatory six-day quarantine.
However, with a different set of rules in Abu Dhabi, where KKR are based, Cummins, Morgan and Tom Banton will have to be in isolation for seven days. Still, the trio could play in KKR’s first game on September 23.
“It has all been taken care of. The idea is that they are not outside of the bubble. If we had flown them by commercial flights, they would have had to undergo quarantine. And cost-wise also it would have been dearer as each player will have to be flown by business class. Close to Rs 1 crore for 22 players is not much I suppose,” a franchise official was quoted as saying in the report.
