Windies Women leave Zimbabwe after omicron ends tourney

THE West Indies women’s cricket team have left Zimbabwe and are on their way back to the Caribbean. The detection of a new variant of covid19 called omicron in southern Africa last week virus brought an abrupt end to the International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s World Cup qualifiers, on Saturday.

As a result, West Indies qualified for the 2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand which will be played from March 4 to April 3.

The qualifiers would have decided the final three spots for the world cup.

Bangladesh and Pakistan will join West Indies as the other teams to qualify for the world cup.

A Cricket West Indies (CWI) media release on Saturday said, “The ICC indicated that with the emergence of the latest covid19 variant in South Africa and the introduction of travel restrictions from a number of African countries, including the host country Zimbabwe, it has reluctantly decided to call off the event.”

CWI CEO Johnny Grave told Newsday via WhatsApp at 1.14 pm TT time on Monday that the West Indies players have left Zimbabwe.

“They have just landed on Oman,” Grave said.

Asked when they are expected to arrive in the Caribbean, Grave said, “Not sure yet…first priority was to (get) them safely out of Africa.”

West Indies were scheduled to play Sri Lanka on Saturday, but the latter had a member of their support staff test positive for covid19 and the match was abandoned. Prior to that six Sri Lankan players tested positive for covid19.