Tim Seifert was one of the players, who contracted the COVID-19 during the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). After the BCCI suspended the tournament, Seifert couldn’t return to New Zealand as he failed both of his pre-departure RT-PCR tests and showed moderate symptoms. Even as the rest of his national teammates returned home, Seifert stayed back in India.
The Black Caps’ cricketer talked about that getting the outcomes confirmed was the hardest half. Whereas he was sharing his expertise, Seifert misplaced his composure and broke down into tears. The opposite journalists, within the press convention, gave him time to remember himself and lent their serving to hand.
“The world kind of stops a little bit,” he told reporters in a video call from hotel quarantine in Auckland.
Tim Seifert narrates
“The Chennai Tremendous Kings supervisor confirmed me the constructive on the highest of the check. The world stops and I simply couldn’t actually suppose what was subsequent. That was the scariest part of it – you hear in regards to the unhealthy issues. I believed that was going to occur to me,” Seifert was quoted as saying, reported by 1 Information.
Seifert is at the moment present process his necessary 14-day quarantine interval after recovering and returning to his residence nation final week. The 26-year-old acknowledged how Brendon McCullum and Stephen Fleming serving to him by the tough section.
Seifert said his “heart sank straight away” when a team official told him of his positive test.
“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.”
Seifert experienced only mild symptoms but the stress had proved the biggest challenge for him. He was among four KKR cricketers to test positive for the virus. Varun Chakravarthy, Sandeep Warrier, and Prasidh Krishna were the others.
Seifert, who is yet to make his IPL debut, said the experience had not turned him off returning to India for the Twenty20 World Cup in October, though the global tournament may be in doubt if the country is unable to overcome a devastating second wave of the coronavirus.
Read more: Hadlee: Without India, the face of world cricket would be different