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The stage is set for the marquee Women's World Cup 2022, which is slated to kick off from March 4, ICC (International Cricket Council) is resilient to conduct an hassle free tournament. In pursuit to do so, contingencies have been put in place to deal with the ongoing Covid outbreak and the rising case numbers in New Zealand. ICC on Thursday said that all matches at the upcoming Women's ODI World Cup in could be played with nine players if the dreaded Covid-19 strikes.
Not just this, but now teams will be allowed to field a reduced line-up in case of a outbreak in their squad. In such cases, members within the coaching and support staff can come in as substitute fielders. ICC’s head of events Chris Tetley confirmed.
"If it becomes necessary we would allow a team to field nine players as an exception for this environment," Tetley said. "And if they had female substitutes from within their management team, we would allow two substitutes to play - non-batting, non-bowling - to enable a game to take place," Tetley added.
Teams had already been permitted to bring up to three travelling reserves with them for the tournament who can be switched in and out of the main 15-player squads if anyone contracts Covid.
Tetley added that rescheduling fixtures would be considered if needed, although said there were "logistical constraints" around the tournament.
"We'll be asking teams to show maximum flexibility and we'll be as flexible as possible if the need arises to fulfil our objective, which is to get the games on," he said.
The Covid-stricken New Zealand is currently experiencing a steep rise in Covid-19 cases since the Omicron variant got into the community with more than 6000 reported on Thursday.
Tetley said the ICC will also have the ability to use unlimited Super Overs within games, to ensure results are achieved on the day they are fixtured.
"I guess I couldn't talk about playing conditions in New Zealand without mentioning a Super Over, and we would have were it necessary unlimited Super Overs if we get to that point in the game," he said.
"So we wouldn't get to the boundaries countback that we experienced in 2019, so there will be a Super Over followed by another Super Over if we need to split the teams," he added.
While the government has imposed restrictions on gatherings at sports evenings, tournament’s CEO Andrea Nelson is optimistic of having small numbers of spectators for group-stage games.
“Under the red traffic light setting we can currently operate in pods of 100. We are taking it week-by-week as we work our way through, but in the first week it is likely there will be some availability at matches. Unfortunately, at some venues we will have to cancel existing ticket holders,” said Nelson.
On March 4, 2022, host New Zealand will lock horns with West Indies in the inaugural game at the Bay Oval in Tauranga. The tournament will be played in a single league format with the eight qualified teams taking on each side once in the group stage. The top four teams on point’s table after the end of the league stage of the tournament will qualify for the semi-finals. With the first and second semis slated for March 30 and 31, respectively, the finals of the title of ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 will be played on April 3 at Hagley Oval ground in Christchurch. The Indian team led by Mithali Raj will start their campaign with a contest against their archrivals Pakistan on March 6.
India's squad: Mithali Raj (Captain), Harmanpreet Kaur (vice-captain), Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia, Deepti Sharma, Smriti Mandhana, Sneh Rana, Richa Ghosh (wicket-keeper), Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper), Jhulan Goswami, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav and Renuka Singh Thakur.
