Getting Black Caps and other New Zealanders involved in the Indian Premier League out of India is proving no easy task.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
More positive cases within the teams, as a result of the intensifying Covid-19 situation in the country, had seen the big-money Twenty20 league indefinitely postponed.
Covid cases in India had been surging since the IPL begun almost four weeks ago.
During that time, the New Zealanders involved in the tournament were said to be feeling safe inside the tournament's bio-secure bubble.
But with that now burst, New Zealand Cricket Players Association boss Heath Mills said those Kiwi players, support staff and officials were eager to get out.
"Obviously now with breaches to their hotel bubbles and some of the teams having Covid cases, they're all now quite anxious and quite keen to get home to New Zealand.
"We also have a group that needs to travel to the UK, for the test series over there and for a domestic T20 comp in that country. They're obviously keen to get there as soon as they can as well."
The appropriateness of having the IPL while India buckled under the pressure of the virus had been a talking point throughout the tournament.
Former Indian cricketer Atul Wassan said the postponement came as no surprise.
"This was bound to happen because just to maintain the bio-bubble is almost impossible.
"You're going to the ground and the groundsmen are on the ground mixing with the players, fixing the wickets mid-game.
"Even when the players get injured, they have to go to the hospital and things like that."
The circumstances had led to players from at least three teams testing positive for Covid-19 before the postponement finally came.
Black Caps captain Kane Williamson who players for the Sunrisers Hyderabad IPL side is one of ten New Zealand cricketers involved in the competition. Photo: Photosport
Among those teams were Kolkata, which included five Kiwis, and Hyderabad, the side captained by Black Caps skipper Kane Williamson.
Mills said all the New Zealanders involved in the tournament were safe for now.
"All the players at the moment are in their rooms and the three teams that have had Covid cases are in isolation and they get Covid tests every morning.
"None of them at this stage have had a positive Covid test."
That didn't mean Mills and others weren't trying to get the Kiwis out of India as quickly as possible.
But it was a complicated puzzle, with outgoing flights hard to come by and the New Zealand group going in different directions.
Eight, including four in the Black Caps squad for tests against England and the Test Championship final, were headed for the UK.
New Zealand Cricket was working alongside their English counterparts and the UK government to get that bunch on chartered flights.
Mills said they hoped to know more in the next 24 hours on that, as well as the 10 other Kiwis trying to get home.
"Some of the IPL franchises are being very good and there is a possibility of a chartered flight being organised within the next 24 hours and taking some of our people home.
"The others probably need to work through commercial flights and get to another port like Doha before they can get on a plane to New Zealand."
Those returning to New Zealand all had vouchers for managed isolation, and Mills was confident they could get a spot in MIQ.
But, as with those bound for the UK, the first task was finding a way out of one of the world's most Covid-ravaged countries.
