New rules to be implemented in Women's World Cup amidst COVID threat

The Cricket's governing body has announced changes in the playing conditions for the Women's World Cup. New Zealand is set to host the mega event, but the rising Covid situation is a concern for the country. These playing conditions have been implemented keeping in mind the number of cases.

Teams have now been allowed to increase their squad strength. The extra players will be added as the reserves, and will only come into play if the players have to be taken out of the bubble due to covid. In addition, two members of the support staff will be allowed to take the field in case a team fails to put on a complete playing XI.

Head of Events Chris Tetley said that given the significance of the event and the situation in which the tournament is being played, being flexile is the need of the hour. "From a COVID perspective, we need to be a little bit flexible, as far as the way in which we manage the game to take into account these unique circumstances. So firstly, we have allowed squads to increase in size. Whilst the official playing 15 is still set at 15 as would always have been the case, we've allowed squads to bring additional traveling reserves so that they can replace on a temporary basis if needs be because of COVID, players in, and out of the squad during the event."

"There's opportunity for players to contract Covid, but then to be able to come back. It's important that we do everything we can to try and maximize opportunities for the best players in the world to show their skills at a World Cup.

"If it becomes necessary, we would allow a team to field nine players as an exception for this environment and if they had female substitutes from within their management team, we would enable two substitutes to play, non-batting, non-bowling, but to enable a game to take place," he added as quoted by Sports Tiger

Tetley also added that to get the results in a game, the teams will play as many super overs as required. The game will be completed on the day itself, he said. Learning from the incident of the 2019 Men's World Cup, this rule has been taken into account.