Black Cap Tim Seifert has broken down in tears during an emotional interview this morning reflecting on his isolation in India after contracting Covid-19 while playing in the Indian Premier League.
The white ball specialist was forced to remain in India while the rest of New Zealand's cricket contingent made a swift exit from the suspended IPL after he failed both of his pre-departure PCR tests and showed "moderate" symptoms.
The 26-year-old said getting the results confirmed was the toughest part.
"The Chennai Super Kings manager showed me the positive on the top of the test," he said.
"The world stops and I just couldn't really think what was next and that was the scariest part of it - you hear about the bad things and I thought that was going to happen to me."
At that moment, Seifert's emotions began to show and the journalists in the online conference gave him time to recollect himself and offer support.
Seifert, who is currently working through his 14 days of managed isolation after recovering and returning to New Zealand last week, went on to say Kiwi coaches Brendon McCullum and Stephen Fleming played a large role in helping him during the tough time.
"They made everything a lot easier," he said of the pair.
"They made sure that things would be put in place and the CSK management and CEO of Kolkata Knight Riders [the team Seifert played for], they made life easy for me to know that everything would be alright and when that time was to come home, they'd try everything to get me home safely.
"It was definitely hard getting told but once a few days had gone by and everything had calmed down a bit... I just knew it was about getting through it and thinking of the positives."
Seifert said one of the biggest positives that helped him get through was knowing he was getting married in two months.
"My fiance was quite happy I'm back a bit earlier so I can help with all the planning."
Seifert has played 35 Twenty20s and three ODIs for the Black Caps since making his debuts in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
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