Alyssa Healy details terrifying trip to flee India as Aussie players need to decide if they will return to the IPL

Australia women’s captain Alyssa Healy has described in terrifying detail the mad scramble to get IPL players and their families out of the firing line in the war between India and Pakistan last week as the $16.5 billion competition is set to resume.

It is unclear which Australian players will return to India with Cricket Australia saying it will support “individual decisions”.

After being suspended last Friday as military action between India and Pakistan ramped up, the IPL will restart on Saturday following the announcement of a ceasefire between the two countries.

The competition has been shifted to the southern part of India, away from its north-western border with Pakistan.

Most Australians involved - players, coaching staff and commentators - left India and returned home over the weekend.

The Australian Government’s travel advice is to exercise a “high degree of caution” in travelling to India.

“Cricket Australia will support players in their individual decisions whether to return to India or not,” a CA spokesperson said.

“We are maintaining communication with the Australian Government and BCCI around security arrangements and safety.”

Healy was in India with husband Mitchell Starc, who plays for the Delhi Capitals.

Starc was involved in a dramatic game in Dharamshala, close to the India-Pakistan border, last Thursday when a power outage forced the match to be cancelled.

“There was a lot of anxiety around the Australian group because we didn’t have a whole heap of information as to what was going on,” Healy told the Willow Talk podcast.

“That’s probably been the really interesting and probably the scariest part of this whole situation is the misinformation.

“Quite close to what’s being fought over, but we were assured everything was fine, ‘everything is OK.

“It’s miles away, the game will go ahead and everything will be fine.”

With missiles hitting 60km away, the floodlights at the ground were turned off to reduce the chances of the ground becoming a target.

“It was a surreal experience. All of a sudden a couple of the light towers went out and we were just sitting there up the top waiting … we’re a large group of family and extra support staff. And the next minute the guy who wrangles the group of us and gets us on the bus came up and his face was white. He was like, ‘we need to go right now’,” Healy said.

“Then (another) guy came out and his face was white and he grabbed one of the children and said, ‘we need to leave right now.’ We were like, ‘what’s going on?’ We weren’t told anything. We had no idea.

“Next minute we are down being shuffled into this room which was like a holding pen. All the boys were in there. Faf (du Plessis) didn’t even have shoes on. We were all just waiting there looking stressed.

“I said to Mitch, ‘what’s going on?” He said the town 60km away had just been smacked by some of the missiles so there was a complete blackout in the area. That’s why the lights were off because the Dharamsala stadium was like a beacon at that point in time. All of a sudden we’re crammed into vans and off we go back to the hotel. There was madness.”

The players and their families then embarked on a 12-hour bus and train ride back to Delhi, but that did little to ease tensions among the group.

“We ended up going south-west towards the border which was a little bit terrifying,” Healy said.

“Mitch and I have played too much Call of Duty and we’re noticing all the SAM (surface-to-air-missile) sites that were just sitting there ready to go. They’re radar operated systems that shoot missiles at aircraft.

“At the end of the day they evacuated the stadium as a precaution, which was fine, but it was probably a little bit too close for comfort.”

Due to the one-week pause, the IPL final has been pushed back to June 3, just eight days before Australia’s World Test Championship final against South Africa in London.

Chairman of selectors George Bailey will on Tuesday announce the squad for the WTC decider.

“Team management will work through preparation implications for the World Test Championship final for those players who choose to play in the remaining IPL matches,” a CA spokesperson added.

The decision about whether players return or not won’t be straight forward.

Players would be foregoing huge amounts of money should they not go back, and also risk hurting their chances of being selected by franchises in the future.

The general feeling is most players will finish the tournament, especially those who are first-choice players.

The match that will resume the tournament will be played between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders on May 17 in Bengaluru.

Josh Hazlewood plays for RCB, but has been nursing a shoulder injury and missed their most recent match.

Besides Hazlewood and Starc four other possible Australian WTC players are mainstays in IPL teams: Pat Cummins, Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Mitch Marsh

Cummins and Head play for Sunrisers Hyderabad who are out of play-off contention even though they have three matches remaining but Inglis’ Punjab Kings, Starc’s Delhi, and Marsh’s Lucknow Super Giants remain in the frame.

Other high-profile Australians involved include Justin Langer, coach at Lucknow, Punjab coach Ricky Ponting and assistant Brad Haddin, Chennai’s Mike Hussey, and commentators Matthew Hayden and Mel Jones.

Ponting and Haddin remained in India.

The Pakistan Super League, which includes David Warner among the participants, is also expected to announce a resumption imminently.

India and Pakistan have clashed since India struck multiple locations in Pakistan that it said were “terrorist camps”.

India say it was in retaliation for the deadly attack in its troubled region of Kashmir last month, in which it insists Pakistan was involved.