India women cricket team departed for a full-fledged tour of Australia on Sunday but fresh Covid-19 related restrictions Down Under means that the cricketers will now have to complete a 14-day hard quarantine upon arrival in Brisbane.
The Indian women’s team has left for Australia for a multi-format series comprising a pink-ball Test and three ODIs and T20Is each. The squad, led by Mithali Raj (Test and ODIs) and Harmanpreet Kaur (Twenty20 Internationals), is flying to Dubai from where they will take off to Brisbane around where they will play their games.
India Women Cricket Team Have To Complete A 14 Day Hard Quarantine Upon Arrival In Australia
The BCCI was earlier hoping that the India women players would get to train after a week of hard quarantine but now the players are likely to be confined to their hotel rooms for 14 days. The historic one-off pink-ball women’s Test between India Women and Australia Women, scheduled to begin from Sept 30, has been moved from the WACA in Perth to the Carrara Stadium (known commercially as the Metricon Stadium) in Gold Coast in Queensland.
According to reliable BCCI sources, the three-match ODI series between the two teams, which will kick off the tour from Sept 19, has now been moved from North Sydney Oval in Sydney to Mackay, a city in Queensland. The other two matches are supposed to be held on Sept 22 and 24.
“Training permission is highly unlikely after the first week in the current scenario. There could be further changes in the itinerary. The hard quarantine will be extremely tough for the players but is what it is,” said a BCCI official.
A player, trying to see things from a positive aspect, said, “It will be very tough but at least we get to play after that.”
The squad, which was training here for the past week, was to fly into Sydney and the other playing venues were Perth and Melbourne but venues have also been changed due to rising cases. Gold Coast, and not North Sydney Oval as initially planned, will now also host the T20Is after staging India’s maiden, much-anticipated pink-ball Test on Oct 7, 9, and 11. An official announcement regarding the revised itinerary of the tour is expected soon.
India Women Is Set To Play Its 1st Ever Pink Ball Test In Australia
The change of itinerary will be announced by Cricket Australia soon and is subject to approval from the Queensland government since all games will be played in the state. The series comprising three ODIs, a day-night Test, and three T20s, is expected to begin two days later instead of September 19. The new venues are Mackay and Carrara.
The 22-member squad will reach Brisbane via Dubai on Monday. The team is set to play its first-ever pink ball game and that is seen as its biggest challenge of the tour. Even during training here, the preparations were focussed on white-ball cricket and it remains to be seen if the team gets a practice game before the series opener.
Meghna Singh, Yastika Bhatia, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, and Richa Ghosh have been included in the Test and ODI setups of the Indian Women’s team for the tour of Australia in September-October. Radha Yadav, Arundhati Reddy, Priya Punia, and Indrani Roy, who were part of the Indian Test and ODI squads in England but didn’t get a game, have been left out.