Andrea Nelson, the CEO of ICC women’s ODI World Cup said that the event was postponed due to the short preparation time for the players ahead of the showpiece event. She clarified that it is nothing to do with safety issues.
Women’s ODI WC postponed
New Zealand was set to host the women’s ODI World Cup at the beginning of 2021. The qualifiers of the tournament were scheduled to be held in July. But due to the pandemic, the entire plan had to be postponed. The host country did manage their COVID situation quite well. New Zealand has so far recorded only 1569 confirmed cases with a majority of them have recovered. It is one of the least affected countries by the pandemic in the world. So, there is no safety issue as such to host the event at the scheduled time. But the CEO of the event Andrea Nelson told a local media group, “It came down to the ability of the teams to qualify.” The official continued, “We’ve done a lot of contingency planning around this event, to give it the best possible chance of proceeding successfully – ultimately the decision to delay it comes down to cricket.”
The 12th edition of the tournament was scheduled to be hosted from February 6 to March 7 next year. But for that, it was important to manage to organize the qualifiers. “No qualifying tournaments have been able to be held yet, so in order to qualify and then compete in the event in 2021 – it was too risky.”
CEO explains
Although the postponement attracted disappointments from a lot of top-level players, Nelson insisted that the situation is not very feasible right now. Nelson explained, “We’ve got teams that can’t train, they can’t assemble – in the case of a country like the West Indies they can’t leave their islands to bring the team together – and that’s just not a feasible way to ask a team to prepare for their pinnacle event.”
She further added, “Having the tournament in 2022 gives the best possible chance for teams around the world to train, prepare, and come and compete in their pinnacle event. We have absolutely no doubt we’ll be able to pick up those plans and deliver an amazing event a year later.”
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