South African Chris Morris, the IPL’s most expensive player ever, has recounted how the atmosphere in the team hotel turned chaotic once news broke of a bio-bubble breach in the money-spinning T20 league.

Rajasthan Royals’ Morris, along with his compatriots who were a part of IPL 2021, has reached home safely following the postponement of the tournament.

Speaking to iol.co.za, Morris, who is in mandatory quarantine for 10 days at home, said: “Look, obviously I’m relieved.”

The all-rounder said that they came to know about the Covid-19 positive cases of Kolkata Knight Riders players Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier on Sunday night.

“The moment we heard that, when players are testing positive inside the bubble, then everyone starts asking questions. The alarm bells definitely started going off for all of us,” he said. “By Monday, when they postponed that game (between KKR and Royal Challengers Bangalore), we knew the tournament was under pressure to continue.”

The 14th edition of the IPL was suspended after Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Wriddhiman Saha and Delhi Capitals’ Amit Mishra also tested positive on Tuesday.

“I was chatting with our team doctor, whose room was across the hallway from mine in the hotel, and Kumar (Sangakkara, Royals’ director of cricket) came around the corner, and drew his finger across his throat, and then we knew it was over,” said Morris.

“And then it was chaos! The England guys especially were panicking because they needed to isolate in hotels in England first, and apparently there weren’t any rooms.”

Gerald Coetzee, who was named the replacement for Australian Andrew Tye, had arrived in India only last week and Morris said he tried to comfort the young pacer as he was panicking a bit.

“I know poor Gerald was panicking a bit, I mean he’s only 20 and all this is going on,” said Morris.

“I tried to keep him under my wing a bit and made sure he was ready when the 12.30am pick-up came at the hotel. It was eerie, it was just a handful of us in that whole hotel at the time.”