Lady Chevrons to wait a little longer
THE Lady Chevrons have to wait a bit longer before returning to international cricket after the International Cricket Council yesterday postponed the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier scheduled for Sri Lanka in July.
The tournament is the final qualifying event for the 2021 Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.
Zimbabwe are part of the 10 teams which made the round after winning the regional qualifier they hosted in Harare last year.
They are set to join the likes of Bangladesh, Ireland, Pakistan, West Indies, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, United States, Netherlands and hosts Sri Lanka in the qualifying tournament.
The top three teams from the global qualifier will progress to the finals to be hosted by New Zealand.
Five teams, which include giants India, Australia, England, South Africa and hosts New Zealand have already qualified.
But the ICC, who have been forced to cancel a series of fixtures this year because of the novel coronavirus, yesterday said they were postponing the women’s World Cup qualifying event.
The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier was due to take place in Sri Lanka between July 3 and 19.
The ICC also announced the postponement of the 2022 Under-19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier Europe Division 2.
ICC Head of Events, Chris Tetley, confirmed the developments.
“In light of the continuing travel restrictions, global health concerns and government and public health authority advice, we have decided to postpone two further upcoming qualifying events due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier and the Europe qualifier to the Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2022 have both been impacted.
“Our priority during this difficult period is to protect the well-being of players, coaches, officials, fans and the whole cricket community and we will take well-informed, responsible decisions in relation to both postponing events and resuming international cricket.
“These are both important events with the Women’s CWC Qualifier one step away from New Zealand 2021 and the Europe qualifier which signifies the start of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2022 pathway.
“We will work in partnership with the Members to find an appropriate window to reschedule these events as soon as is safe and practical to do so. I would like to thank the Members for their cooperation and continued support.”
The two remaining ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup Regional Qualifier Division 2 events are being monitored and kept under review.
The Africa event is due to take place in Tanzania between August 7 and 14 and the Asia event between December 1 and 9 in Thailand.
The Division 1 events in all five regions are scheduled to take place in 2021.
The postponement of the women’s World Cup is both a blow and blessing to the Zimbabwe women’s side.
The team is always short of international exposure but the Covid-19 outbreak had also wrecked their preparations.
The Mary-Anne Musonda-captained Lady Chevrons began this year with a training camp in Bulawayo to prepare for the 50-over World Cup set for New Zealand next year.
From there, they were supposed to head off to Thailand for a quadrangular series where they were due to face Ireland, Scotland and the host nation as part of the preparations. Scotland were also earmarked to tour Zimbabwe last month but all the plans were hampered by the outbreak of the coronavirus.