Women’s World Cup teams can play with 9 players if Covid-19 strikes

Cape Town - Teams at the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 will be able to field a side with only nine players if their squad is affected by Covid-19, the International Cricket Council announced on Thursday.

The ICC has made arrangements to support teams and ensure the tournament can continue as normally as possible. Other announcements include an unlimited number of super overs to decide tied matches and strict protocols for teams.

ICC Head of Events Chris Tetley said at a media interaction in Christchurch today: “From a Covid perspective, we need to be a little bit flexible, as far as the way in which we manage the game to take into account these unique circumstances.

“So firstly, we have allowed squads to increase in size. Whilst the official playing 15 is still set at 15 as would always have been the case, we've allowed squads to bring additional travelling reserves so that they can replace on a temporary basis, if needs be because of Covid, players in and out of the squad during the event.

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“There's opportunity for players to contract Covid-19 but then to be able to come back. It's important that we do everything we can to try and maximise opportunities for the best players in the world to show their skills at a World Cup.

“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 enable two substitutes to play, non-batting, non-bowling, but to enable a game to take place.”

The tournament begins on 4 March in Tauranga and will culminate with the final in Christchurch on 3 April with each team playing the other seven