Covid-19: India has been amazing to me every time, please stay safe, says Slater
May 05, 2021
New Delhi [India], May 5 : Former Australia batsman Michael Slater on Wednesday once again slammed Prime Minister Scott Morrison for enforcing a travel ban from India and not letting citizens enter the country.
The Australian contingent that had come to India is now stranded and their only hope of entering Australia lies in the travel ban being lifted after May 15.
"Amazing to smoke out the PM on a matter that is a human crisis. The panic, the fear of every Australian in India is real!! How about you take your private jet and come and witness dead bodies on the street," tweeted Slater.
In another tweet, Slater said: "Above all my love and prayers to every Indian. You have been nothing but amazing to me every time I've been there. Please stay safe."
Earlier, Slated had stated that he has not "made a penny" having left his IPL 2021 duties mid-way. Slater had lashed out at Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison amid the travel ban as coronavirus continued to rage in India.
"And for those who think this is a money exercise. Well forget it. This is what I do for a living and I have not made a penny having left early. So please stop the abuse and think of the thousands dying in India each day. It's called empathy. If only our government had some!" Slater had tweeted.
With the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League postponed, Cricket Australia's interim Chief Executive Officer Nick Hockley has said that every arrangement is being made to repatriate the Australian contingent as soon as possible. Hockley went on to add that Sri Lanka and Maldives are the two places that have been zeroed in on for the Australian contingent to move to from India before they return home since direct flights from India to Australia have been stopped with an eye on the second COVID-19 wave.
"We're working on arrangements to repatriate all the players, the support staff, umpires, commentators as quickly and as safely as possible. What we're working to do and what the BCCI are working to do, and they've been incredibly cooperative, is working to move the entire cohort out of India. So the BCCI has been working on a range of options. That's now narrowed down to the Maldives and Sri Lanka. The BCCI are working through the final details of that at the moment and we expect that movement will happen in the next two to three days," he told reporters on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, India registered 3,82,315 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, said the union health ministry on Wednesday morning. With this, the cumulative count of the cases has gone up to 2,06,65,148.
The daily spike had reached its peak of over four lakh cases on May 1, but came down to 3,57,229 cases on Tuesday. As many as 3,780 people succumbed to the disease in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative death toll to 2,26,188.
