Women's World Cup 2022: ICC does away with strict bubbles, daily COVID-19 tests

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has done away with strict bio-bubbles and daily COVID-19 tests for the upcoming Women’s World Cup 2022, which gets underway on March 4 in New Zealand. As the country has witnessed a steep rise in cases ever since the Omicron variant came in the picture, it was speculated that the players have to follow some strict norms throughout the global competition.

However, ICC is determined to have a “managed environment” during the tournament. Notably, these rules have been finalized after considering the fact that all players and support staff members have undergone the mandatory quarantine period upon their arrival in the host country. Meanwhile, the Women’s World Cup 2022 is the first global tournament in women’s cricket in the COVID-19 era. Hence, ICC wants to conduct the event smoothly.

Testing will be infrequent but not daily: ICC general manager

“I think the approach is around having a managed environment around the tournament,” ICC general manager Geoff Allardice told media. “Testing will be infrequent; it won’t be daily testing. It’s really about players taking responsibility knowing they are in the country for a month and living away for that period not locked into a very tight bubble. It’s not going to be practical; it’s certainly not going to allow teams to play their best on the field,” he added.

Meanwhile, Allardice has also urged the players to remain sensible and stay away from the area where transmission of the virus is possible. “There are some general guidelines that are required, but we’re asking players and teams to just be sensible, stay away from areas that are likely to create transmission,” said Allardice further.

“The other thing is, we found out in last few tournaments – like at the Under-19 World Cup [in the Caribbean in January-February] – is even though we had number of positive tests, the number of people displaying symptoms were very low. We want to focus on keeping people safe and healthy. It’s a bit of a change from where we may have been six months ago,” he added.