Three Australian cricketers – Rajasthan Royals’ Andrew Tye and Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson have withdrawn from the remainder of the ongoing Indian Premier League citing personal reasons.
“Adam Zampa & Kane Richardson are returning to Australia for personal reasons and will be unavailable for the remainder of IPL season. Royal Challengers Bangalore offers complete support to them in all the possible way we can,” the franchise said in a statement.
Tye said he decided to leave on Sunday after getting to know about the mounting quarantine cases from India in his hometown Perth.
“There was a number of reasons, but the main one was with the situation that has started to happen back home in Perth with a lot of cases in hotel quarantine coming out of India,” Tye told SEN radio from Doha on Monday.
“Now there’s been a community case in Perth governments are trying to restrict numbers coming back in, especially Western Australia.”
The bubble fatigue was also a factor, said Tye.
Tye flew back home on Sunday making him the fourth Rajasthan Royals overseas recruit to pull out. Earlier, Englishmen Jofra Archer (hand surgery), Ben Stokes (finger fracture) and Liam Livingstone (bubble fatigue) had opted out.
“AJ Tye flew back to Australia earlier today due to personal reasons. We will continue to offer any support he may need,” Royals tweeted on the day.
Late on Saturday, Royals’ Director of Cricket Kumar Sangakkara had announced in the dressing room after their victory over KKR that Tye was leaving for Australia and had an early morning (Sunday) flight at 4 am.
While Archer didn’t join the squad due to his surgery, Stokes sustained an injury early on and Livingstone didn’t play a single game before declaring that bubble life was too difficult to deal with.
The 34-year-old Tye, who has played seven ODIs and 28 T20 Internationals for Australia, hasn’t yet got a game in this edition of the tournament.
The last match he played was a Big Bash League encounter in February for Perth Scorchers against Sydney Sixers.
With PTI inputs