Barbados Women To Represent West Indies At 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games

The Barbados women have been chosen to represent West Indies at next year’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games. Women’s cricket is being played at the multi-nation event for the first time ever.

The decision to select Barbados came on the back of the fact that Cricket West Indies (CWI) postponed the Women’s Super50 Cup as well as the 2021 T20 Blaze. Being the winner of the previous Blaze edition, Barbados were thus given the nod.

Johnny Grave, chief executive of CWI, made a statement wishing the team ahead of the ‘historic’ occasion. The sport will receive widespread views and its popularity will increase among the non-playing countries.

“This is a historic occasion as for the first time Women’s Twenty20 cricket will feature at this prestigious global sporting event, which is a great fillip for our sport and great exposure and opportunity for the players.”

“We wish them all the very best as they compete for the gold medal, and we know they will continue to do West Indies proud,” he said.

“The decision to postpone T20 Blaze was forced by covid-19 pandemic” – Cricket West Indies CEO

The T20 Blaze would have decided which national team would have officially represented West Indies at the 2022 Commonwealth games. Unfortunately, they couldn’t go ahead with the tournament because of the pandemic.

“It has been a challenging period with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic at our doorstep, and we have been forced to take the decision to postpone the Women’s T20 Blaze and Women’s CG Insurance Super50 Cup for this year. We have however been able to invest in several High-Performance Camps and international fixtures to the Women’s squad, conducted by Courtney Walsh and his coaching staff.”

“These have been hugely beneficial to date and we have identified a core group of players who are the best available in the region for the ICC Women’s World Cup qualifiers who will benefit from the additional resources that CWI is committing to preparing the West Indies Women’s squad,” Grave said.

With this decision, Barbados will join England, India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and South Africa as the other teams to have qualified for the next year’s tournament. The last team (eighth) will be decided by a qualifying tournament.

Also Read – Joe Root Goes Past Andrew Strauss To Become England’s Joint Third-Highest Test Centurion