“Teams will be allowed to play in the game with a minimum of nine players”: Chris Tetley confirms ICC Women’s World Cup games to go ahead even with nine players available

ICC Women’s World Cup: ICC has confirmed that a match will go ahead with a minimum of nine regular players available on the field.

The mega event of Women’s cricket is already under a lot of Covid threats. There has been a steep rise in the Covid cases in New Zealand. The Omicron variant has been increasing rapidly in the country.

The country is currently under a ‘red’ traffic system will which reduce the people’s gathering, especially at sporting events. Tournament CEO Andrea Nelson said has said that they will have to cancel the tickets at some venues.

“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,” Andrea said.

“Unfortunately at some venues we will have to cancel existing ticket holders. It is not something we want to do, and we are working really hard to see how many people we can get into the stadiums.”

ICC Women’s World Cup Covid rules

To manage the games on a regular basis, and to reduce the postponements, ICC has made a different rule. A team will be allowed to play in the game with a minimum of nine players available. They can use their non-playing female support staff on the field if required. Apart from 15 regular members, every team has three traveling reserves in their ranks.  ICC’s head of events Chris Tetley has confirmed the same.

“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.”

England’s Tammy Beaumont has eight centuries at an average of 43.36 in ODIs 🔥

How will the Player of the Tournament from the 2017 edition fare at #CWC22? pic.twitter.com/evBhgPTs7k

— ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) February 24, 2022

Chris Tetley has also said that the schedule of the tournament is flexible. If some team faces a Covid threat, the other teams can continue playing at regular intervals.

“We’ll be asking teams to show maximum flexibility and we’ll be as flexible as possible if the need arise to fulfil our objective which is to get the games on,” Tetley said.

The tournament will start on 4 March 2022, whereas the final will be played on 3 April 2022.