By Daniel Brettig
David Warner will return to Pakistan this week for the completion of the Pakistan Super League, just days after Australian players narrowly escaped an Indian missile strike on the airbase from which they flew to Dubai.
And Test captain Pat Cummins is leaning towards taking part in the resumption of the Indian Premier League as skipper of Sunrisers Hyderabad after the tournament unveiled plans to restart on Saturday.
Warner – who was not on the charter flight from Islamabad last week that included Sean Abbott, Riley Meredith and Ashton Turner – confirmed his decision to this masthead. It is a vote of confidence in the PSL as the Twenty20 league tries to restart following the announcement of a ceasefire between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan.
The Pakistan Cricket Board held meetings with its franchise teams on Monday to discuss dates and venues for the conclusion of the tournament, likely to be Lahore and Islamabad.
At least one other Australian player, Ben McDermott, is also planning to return to the PSL, which has eight games left to play. Though some players were stunned by the airbase attack, many have expressed confidence in security arrangements for players in Pakistan.
The Indian Premier League announced overnight that it would resume matches this weekend, and Cummins’ manager Neil Maxwell said the Australian Test skipper was “likely” to return, pending travel and security arrangements. Josh Hazlewood, who has a shoulder complaint, is likely to stay at home.
David Warner will return to Pakistan to play out the season.Credit: Getty Images
Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Mitchell Starc are the other members of the Test squad taking part in the IPL. The competition’s final 16 games will start on Saturday, with the final now not due to be played until June 3, more than a week later than originally scheduled.
That means it will start to clash with international cricket, and drastically shorten Australia’s preparation time for the world Test championship final, currently scheduled to begin on June 11 against South Africa at Lord’s.
Six venues will be used, all in central and southern India, some distance from the border with Pakistan.
A number of Australians are involved as players, coaching staff and commentators, most leaving India when the competition shutdown, returning home at the weekend.
Pat Cummins in action at the IPL.Credit: AP
Australian players, who have been reassured by Cricket Australia that the governing body will defend their right to choose in the event of pressure from the Indian board and IPL clubs, must now decide whether to return to the event or not.
The IPL still has 13 group matches left, including the fixture between Ricky Ponting’s Punjab Kings and Starc’s Delhi Capitals, which was called off in the first innings on May 8 as air-raid sirens wailed nearby.
Australian women’s captain Alyssa Healy, who was in Dharamsala with her husband Starc when the game was abruptly abandoned, said players were concerned by the lack of clear information they encountered in India.
She believed Australian players should get Australian government reassurance of safety.
Delhi Capitals’ Mitchell Starc celebrates a wicket.Credit: nna\damien.mccartney
The Australian government’s current travel advice for India is to “exercise a high degree of caution” if travelling there.
“There was a lot of anxiety around the Australian group because we didn’t have a whole heap of information as to what was going on,” Healy told the Willow Talk podcast.
Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc.Credit: Getty Images
“That’s probably been the really interesting and probably the scariest part of this whole situation; the misinformation. At the end of the day, they evacuated the stadium as a precaution, which was fine, but it was probably a little bit too close for comfort.”
Healy spoke about how she and other families and staff were sitting in the stands when the light towers started to go out in the middle of Delhi’s clash with Punjab.
“It was a surreal experience,” Healy said. “All of a sudden, a couple of the light towers went out and we were just sitting there up the top waiting … we’re a large group of family and extra support staff, and the next minute the guy who wrangles the group of us ... came up and his face was white. He was like, ‘We need to go right now’.
“Then [another] guy came out and his face was white, and he grabbed one of the children and said, ‘We need to leave right now’. We were like, ‘What’s going on?’ We weren’t told anything. We had no idea. Next minute, we are down being shuffled into this room which was like a holding pen. All the boys were in there.
“Faf [du Plessis] didn’t even have shoes on. We were all just waiting there looking stressed. I said to Mitch, ‘What’s going on?’ He said the town 60 kilometres away had just been smacked by some of the missiles, so there was a complete blackout in the area. That’s why the lights were off because the Dharamsala stadium was like a beacon at that point in time. All of a sudden, we’re crammed into vans and off we go back to the hotel. There was madness.”
On their way out of Dharamsala, ultimately to Delhi and then home, Healy and Starc saw Indian preparations for war.
“We ended up going south-west towards the border which was a little bit terrifying,” Healy said.
“Mitch and I have played too much Call of Duty and we’re noticing all the SAM [surface-to-air missile] sites that were just sitting there ready to go. They’re radar-operated systems that shoot missiles at aircraft.”
The match that will resume the tournament will be played between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders on May 17 in Bengaluru.
Cricket Australia said it would “support players in their individual decisions whether to return to India or not”.
“Each player will have experienced it differently,” CA’s performance chief Ben Oliver said in Brisbane on Tuesday.
“No doubt it was an extreme situation, and we feel it is appropriate to support their individual experience and their individual decision as they work through that.”
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