The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 had to be postponed midway after 29 matches. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had to take this step after some players and support staff in the IPL bio-bubble tested Covid-19 positive.
New Zealand batsman Tim Seifert, who played for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), also tested positive for Covid-19 and was unable to exit India with other Kiwi cricketers.
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Seifert has now returned home after recovering from the dreaded infection and is currently in a mandatory 14-day quarantine. During an interview, Tim Seifert broke down as he got emotional while remembering the horrifying experience.
Siefert, who was the last overseas cricketer to leave India, said his "heart sank straight away" when a KKR official informed him of his Coronavirus positive test.
"The world kind of stops a little bit," he told reporters in a video call from hotel quarantine in Auckland. "I just couldn't really think what was next. And that was the scary part of it.
"You hear about the bad things and I thought that was going to happen to me."
"The news (in India) is all about a lack of oxygen, you don't know if you're going to be in that situation," he said.
"It's just the whole unknown of what COVID is, how you're going to react to it."
After Sandeep Warrier and Varun Chakravarthy, Seifert was the third Kolkata Knight Riders player to test Coronavirus positive. Reacting to the news, NZC chief executive David White had said that he was confident Seifert will receive the best medical care in India.