“That could be an interesting plane journey”: Why Australia and England shared flight from UAE to Brisbane ahead of Ashes 2021?

Ashes 2021: T20 World Champions Australia and England share a flight from UAE to Brisbane for the Ashes 2021.

The caravan of ICC T20 World Cup 2021 is over and now the focus shifts on the Ashes 2021 for Australia and England. Australia won the T20 world cup, whereas England got knocked out in the semis. However, in an interesting set of events, both England and Australia shared a long flight from Dubai to Brisbane together.

England were forced to wait till the world cup finals in order to travel to Australia. This must be a difficult flight for the English team, as their rivals are coming on the back of a successful world cup campaign.

English pacer Mark Wood was also nervous about sharing the flight with the Australian team. He gave an interview about this prospect before the T20 World Cup finals.

“I just can’t have them (Australia) win that game. It’s going to be unbearable,” Wood said.

“You can look them in the eye and say congratulations to them but when you are about to head off to an Ashes series against them, the last thing you want is them feeling confident and waving a trophy around in your face before you’ve even got there.”

Why do Australia and England share a flight ahead of Ashes 2021?

The decision of sharing the flights was taken due to Quarantine protocols in Australia. Both teams were forced to travel in a charter together in order to complete a bubble to bubble transfer. Both sets of players will now undergo a short quarantine in Brisbane, before starting their training on the gold coast.

“There is one bunch of cricketers who won’t be enjoying this, watching on, and that’s England’s Ashes players,” former England captain Mike Atherton said.

“That could be an interesting plane journey.”

England’s #T20WorldCup players who are also in their Ashes squad will be sharing a flight Down Under with Australia’s champions 😬 pic.twitter.com/Fel9TonrE1

— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) November 15, 2021

However, Josh Hazlewood insisted that there won’t be any kind of awkwardness between both sets of players.

“It will be fine, we’ve played a lot of cricket with them – county cricket and IPL,” Hazlewood said.

“Everyone knows everyone, we all get on fine.”

Both teams will face each other in the Ashes 2021 test on 8th December at the Gabba in Brisbane.