Following their arrival in New Zealand for the upcoming Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022, the six teams - Australia, Bangladesh, England, Pakistan, South Africa and West Indies - will not able to go out of their hotel rooms for training during their ‘Managed Isolation And Quarantine’ (MIQ) stays. (Cricket News)
Since the COVID-19 era, the teams travelling to New Zealand have to return negative day-three virus tests to hit the training ground, however, the World Cup-bound teams will have to complete 10 days in isolation without training. They can go out for practice only from February 21.
While all the mentioned six teams landed in New Zealand this week, India had already reached Down Under way before as the Women In Blue are playing white-ball matches against the hosts.
A spokesperson from Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE), the body that oversees the MIQ system, said that a “compromise” with training was required considering the safety of the players who will be playing at the mega event.
“Facilitating off-site training is very complex and requires significant resourcing to ensure it can be safely operationalised which includes a dedicated team to manage this in Christchurch,” said the MBIE spokesperson as quoted in New Zealand’s news media website ‘Stuff’.
“This means we can’t have more than two teams training at one time. Had the arrival of teams been able to be accommodated over a longer period of a week or so we may have been able to facilitate more training.
“There were limitations in regards to when the teams could arrive, and MIQ facilities were at capacity over February, so we needed to work together to find a compromise.”
The showpiece event kicks off on March 4 with New Zealand and West Indies facing off each other in the first match. However, before that all the teams will be playing official warm-up matches that are set to be played from February 27 to March 2.
