Two Bangladesh women cricketers test positive for Covid-19

Two women cricketers of Bangladesh tested positive for Covid-19 mere days after their return from Zimbabwe, where the qualifiers for the Women’s World Cup were being held but were cancelled in the wake of a new variant of the virus, Omicron, spreading arms across the southern territories of Africa.

The women’s team, which returned to Dhaka on December 1 immediately after the International Cricket Council announced the decision to cancel the event, has been under institutional quarantine for the last five days and continued to return negative tests until December 6. Meanwhile, the two unnamed Covid-positive cricketers have now been placed in isolation, BCB’s media committee chairman, Jalal Yunus told Cricfrenzy.

“They were tested a few times after arriving in Dhaka,” Jalal said. Every time the returned negative before the latest test. Those who tested positive are isolated, they, along with the other members of the team, gave samples for another test on Monday.”

As for the Women’s World Cup Qualifiers, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the West Indies qualified by the virtue of the rankings, whereas Sri Lanka and Ireland will also join them in the next cycle of the event.

The other teams who have qualified for the event to be held in New Zealand from March 4 to April 3 are Australia, England, India, South Africa and hosts New Zealand. The number of teams in the third cycle of the ICC Women’s Championship (from 2022-2025) has been increased from eight to ten, and these teams will be Australia, England, India, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, West Indies, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Ireland.

Upon the unfortunate cancellation of the event, ICC Head of Events Chris Tetley had said: “We are incredibly disappointed to have to cancel the remainder of this event but with travel restrictions from a number of African countries being imposed at such short notice there was a serious risk that teams would be unable to return home.

“We have explored a number of options to allow us to complete the event but it isn’t feasible [to continue the tournament],” she added.