Coronavirus: Australian cricketers resort to luxury bio-bubble

The Morrison government is preparing special exemptions for the Australian cricket team to allow them a luxury quarantine hotel when they return.

Australian cricketer David Warner at Sydney airport on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

The Morrison government is preparing special exemptions for the Australian cricket team to allow them a luxury quarantine hotel where they will be able to train within a “bio-bubble’’ for two weeks.

The national team will travel back to Australia on a special charter plane and be whisked away to a secret hotel resort after their T20 and limited overs tour of England finishes next month.

The cricketing party, which numbers about 40, won’t be included on the weekly cap of 4000 Australians allowed back into the country because they won’t be taking up a usual quarantine hotel place.

The special treatment for the cricketers comes as more than 20,000 increasingly desperate Australians are unable to get back home — some having had their flights cancelled more than six times, and despite paying for expensive business-class seats.

The inequities have highlighted the state and federal governments’ hotel quarantine processes, which locks up overwhelmingly healthy Australians for two weeks in small rooms without access to fresh air or outside exercise while Australians who contract the virus are ­allowed to isolate at home.

It also shines a spotlight on the difficulties of international sport resuming in the country, with Tennis Australia chief Craig Tiley telling tennis players like Roger Federer and Serena Williams that they too can isolate in a special bio-bubble in the lead up to the Australian Tennis Open.

About 2500 tennis players and entourages would normally attend the tournament.

Cricket Australia is having to organise and pay for the special quarantine, which will follow the appropriate state’s COVID-19 protocols, for the returning touring team as well as the visiting Indian team due to play around Australia this summer.