The news of detection of a new Covid-19 variant in South Africa spread like a wildfire last month leading to countries closing borders and canceling flights to the South African countries with immediate effect which created panic all across the globe especially among the natives of other countries who were in any of the SA countries at that time.
The concern wasn’t just for the people who rushed to catch a flight home, but it was also for event organizers especially in sports because 2020 already made them reschedule their calendar and now this new variant plus a number of games were in progress including the Qualifiers for 2022 Women’s ICC Cricket World Cup when the news broke out. Forced to cancel the qualifiers, ICC followed the ranking criteria to fill the remaining three World Cup spots, which made West Indies, Pakistan, and Bangladesh through.
However, the difficult task for the cricket council was to send the players back to their respective countries safely. So, the Windies and a number of other teams were flown to Oman via private charter where they spent a few days in quarantine until a way back to their home was possible.
Nearly after 11 days of Quarantine, WI team are headed home.
The West Indies squad was flown to Oman by an ICC private charter, with a short stopover in Namibia, along with 8 other international squads. Oman was used as a staging area for the West Indies Women’s squad. pic.twitter.com/3zqJKBL0Wu
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) December 10, 2021
After an anxious wait of over two weeks since the cancellation, which was announced on November 27, the authorities finally made the journey home possible for West Indies women on December 10 as shared by Cricket West Indies (CWI) in an official release.
Expressing his gratitude, CWI CEO Johnny Grave said, “We are pleased to confirm that the West Indies Women’s squad will soon be making their way back home. We want to thank them for their patience and understanding as we worked with our counterparts at the ICC and Oman Cricket to facilitate their return at the earliest opportunity,”
“We want to express our appreciation to the ICC, Oman Cricket, and our operations team, who have worked tirelessly to ensure everyone was comfortable and remained safe,” he added as per a report by ANI.
The 2022 ICC Women’s World Cup is scheduled to take place in New Zealand from March 4 with the finals on April 3. The eight teams competing for the big title are- Australia, India, England, South Africa, New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
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