Women’s World Cup: The approach is around having a managed environment around the event, says Allardice

Christchurch, Feb 28 : ICC CEO Geoff Allardice said that they are organising the upcoming Womens Cricket World Cup in a managed environment, where the teams wont be in bio-bubbles and wont be subjected to daily testing for Covid-19.

He added that the onus will be on the players to be sensible for the smooth conduct of the tournament.

The Womens Cricket World Cup will take place in New Zealand from March 4 to April 3."I think the approach is around having a managed environment around the tournament.Testing will be infrequent; it wont be daily testing.

Its 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.Its not going to be practical; its certainly not going to allow teams to play their best on the field," Allardice was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Allardice explained how the responsibility will be on the players when the World Cup is on."There are some general guidelines that are required, but were asking players and teams to just be sensible, stay away from areas that are likely to create transmission.The other thing is, we found out in the 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.Its a bit of a change from where we may have been six months ago."Ahead of the tournament, the ICC had made some changes in the playing conditions for the tournament, including nine players on each side in the event of a Covid-19 outbreak.Moreover, teams have been allowed to have travelling reserves apart from the 15-member main squads.

The nine-per-side suggestion came from the Mens U19 World Cup in the West Indies and the interrupted womens Cricket World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe."We needed to have some contingency plans.

I know they have attracted a bit of attention, but in terms of having to think these things through, how you give teams the best chance to prepare to know what might happen, thats the reason we came up with that protocol.The bottom line is, we want 11 vs 11.We have squads of 15, all teams are travelling with reserve players as a contingency.""The announcement or introduction of those protocols was very much given the uncertainty of the event we were dealing with.

We had the Womens World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe where one team was marginal in terms of players available for some of the matches.We had the same situation at the Under-19 World Cup (in the Caribbean).

Fingers crossed we dont have to get anywhere near it.But there may be situations where if a team doesnt have an XI available, we needed protocols to deal with that," concluded Allardice.nr/bsk #Womens #approach #managed #Cricket #BCCI #ICC #IPL #Sports #Covid-19.