The cohort had returned to Australia vie The Maldives and will each enter a mandatory 14-day quarantine period at a number of Sydney hotels before re-entering society.

Their arrival has angered many and, at a time when Australian cricket was just rebuilding its image after the sandpaper scandal, is likely to lose the sport even more fans.

The first issue is that it is not a good look for the rich and privileged to be seen hiring their own charter flights to get back to Australia, but that's simply the way of the capitalist world.

The reality is that people with money can achieve and experience things that people without money can't, and Cricket Australia hiring a charter flight to get their people home is no different to them paying for better hotel rooms when teams go on tour.

And right now there must be no shortage of planes available for hire; the world's fleet of aircraft has never had less to do.

But what cannot sit well with ordinary Australians is the suggestion that these cricketers have been allowed to jump the queue to access a spot in hotel quarantine while thousands of Australians remain stranded overseas.

The federal government has consistently made it clear that the rate we can repatriate Australians from COVID-affected countries has largely been dictated by the numbers we can safely accommodate within the quarantine system.

When individual states have gone into lockdown and shut their own facilities, the total number allowed back into Australia has fallen. When those facilities have reopened, the total allowed in has risen.

Whether people have agreed with those rules or not, at least they have been understood and the federal government's handling of hotel quarantine has played a major role in ensuring we've coped better with the pandemic than many other countries.

But if extra places can be found for the privileged then the question has to be asked why extra places can't also been found for their compatriots. And if they're taking existing places while others are left waiting, then that's even worse.

Either way, Monday was a sorry day for Australian cricket and Australian fairness.

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