ICC Women's World Cup trophy
ICC Women's World Cup Trophy. Image Credits: ICC

The International Cricket Council (ICC) will allow matches to take place if each team manages to field nine players in the upcoming ICC Women’s World Cup 2022.

ICC Women’s World Cup, which was initially supposed to take place in 2021, but was pushed a year later owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

ICC Women’s World Cup 2022 to be played in New Zealand

Each team will play seven matches in the league stage in the round-robin format with the top four teams qualifying for the semifinals of the marquee event.

India Women vs New Zealand Women. Photo- Twitter
India Women vs New Zealand Women. Photo- Twitter

A total of 28 league matches will be played across six venues in New Zealand with the final to be held in Christchurch.

New Zealand is recording a surge in COVID-19 as more than 6000 cases were reported on Thursday.

In the U19 World Cup, the Indian team was hit with the COVID-19 fiasco and somehow managed to field a playing XI against Ireland U19.

We would allow a team to field nine players: ICC

ICC head of events Chris Tetley confirmed that teams will be allowed to play with a maximum of nine players in case COVID-19 disrupts any team’s camp.

“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.

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“We would allow two substitutes to play – non-batting, non-bowling – to enable a game to take place,” Tetley was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

ICC Women's World Cup 2022: ICC To Allow Teams To Play With Nine Players Amid COVID-19 Scare
Chris Tetley. (Credits: Twitter)

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

Hosts New Zealand will kick off the event as they take on Stafanie Taylor-led West Indies on March 4 at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui. Defending champions England will start their campaign against rivals Australia on March 5 in Hamilton.

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