With the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup around the corner, the ICC have announced some guidelines to ensure the smooth conduct of the tournament, keeping the pandemic in mind. The governing body has okayed nine-man teams to take the field in case of unavailability of certain players, among other considerations.
The nine-member rule is a result of the Covid-19 situation, which also caused some trouble in the recently concluded U19 World Cup, which the Indian Colts won, beating England in the final.
However, this rule is not new, and is in effect since the youth World Cup in the Caribbean, where quite a few sides experienced tense situations due to a number of Covid-19 cases in their own camp.
Head of events at the ICC Chris Tetley said that the decision to enable teams to field short squads in the event of unavailability of sufficient players has been extended to the Women’s World Cup as well, for obvious reasons. Such squads can then make use of substitute fielders from management or support staff.
“If it becomes necessary we would allow a team to field nine players as an exception for this environment. 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 said.
The ICC has also given teams the provision of bringing along with their 15-member squad, an additional three travelling reserve players, who can be drafted into the squad in case of any Covid-related mishap.
“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 added.
The ICC also made it clear that they would consider postponing or rescheduling the games if necessary to afford maximum flexibility in any untoward situation in between the tournament. Hosts New Zealand will take on the Windies women in the opener on March 4 at Mount Manganui.
