Agency :
Bangladesh women’s cricket teams have arrived in Dhaka on Wednesday after the Women’s World Cup qualifiers campaign which was halted due to Covid-19 fears.
They will now have to serve a five-day institutional quarantine at a five-star hotel in Dhaka.
A charter plane carrying the members of the team landed in Dhaka at 9 am on Wednesday. Because of travel restrictions, they at first travelled from Zimbabwe to Namibia. From there, they headed to Muscat in Oman and finally landed in Dhaka after a three-day journey.
The International Cricket Council announced the postponement of the tournament on Saturday due to the introduction of travel restrictions from a number of African countries, including the hosts country Zimbabwe, following the breakout of a new Covid-19 variant in southern Africa.
Pakistan and West Indies are the other two teams to progress to the World Cup along with Bangladesh. Bangladesh beat Pakistan by three wicket and crushed the USA by 270 runs before experienced a shocking 16-run defeat to Thailand by DLS method. Still Bangladesh topped the Group B.
Play in two of the three matches scheduled for Saturday – Zimbabwe v Pakistan and USA v Thailand – started as scheduled but the third fixture of the day, between the West Indies and Sri Lanka, could not be staged as a member of the Sri Lanka team support staff tested positive for Covid-19.
Based on the rankings, Bangladesh along with Pakistan and the West Indies have qualified for the 50-over World Cup and will join England, South Africa, New Zealand, India and Australia in the mega event.
The BCB had earlier said that the entire team would have to stay in the official quarantine for 5 to 14 days after returning home. He is also looking for a hotel. Despite the cancellation of the qualifying round, the Bangladesh women’s team will play in the 2022 World Cup due to being ahead in the rankings.
