IPL bound Australia cricketers in Maldives worried with the sound of falling rocket debris

Close to around 37 Australian cricketers including coaches, commentators and officials are currently in Maldives completing their quarantine period. After the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was suspended, they were stranded in India as Australia had banned travellers from the country, even their own citizens and made it a criminal offence too.

So the BCCI decided to fly them out safely to Maldives where they will complete the mandatory quarantine before flying out to their home country. While everything was going fine, all of them were rattled by a sonic boom of Chinese rocket debris which crashed into the Indian Ocean on Sunday.

China launched a module to set up its first permanent space station in orbit on April 29. However, it was already known that the rockets carrying the module would return to earth’s atmosphere around May 8 or 9 (Saturday or Sunday). The China Manned Space Engineering Office had also expressed fears of the falling debris causing the damage.

Moreover, the uncontrolled entry into earth’s atmosphere has led to some remnants falling in few locations at Maldives also while the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has criticised the move.

We heard the bang at 5:30 AM, says David Warner

Among the Australian cricketers, David Warner came forward to speak to The Australian about the incidents and recalled that they heard the banging sound around 5:30 AM (Maldives time) on Sunday. “We heard the bang around 5:30 AM this morning (Sunday). Experts say the noise we heard is the crack in the atmosphere which sets off a wave of sound not the actual impact of the rocket,” he said.

This has certainly left the Australian contingent in Maldives worried even as they continue to stay in their rooms in the country. They will now be soon hoping to return to their family soon after a seemingly uncertain time since the indefinite suspension of the IPL around a week ago.