Papua New Guinea women’s cricket team are suffering from Covid-19 at such a large level that they had to pull out from their biggest possible opportunity to date, a place in the global World Cup Qualifiers to be held in Zimbabwe from November 21.
Cricket PNG said that its women’s team had to pull out because of "not having enough players for the tour who can pass the covid tests required for flying."
"We have also over the weekend worked with the ICC on later flight options to give the team more time to still be able to tour. Unfortunately, all the extra efforts to get the team to travel have been unsuccessful," the media release from the board added.
PNG, who had topped the Asia Pacific qualifiers two years ago, were set to compete with West Indies, Netherlands, Ireland, and Sri Lanka in the group phase in the tournament.
The team was to leave early for Zimbabwe to acclimate to the conditions after being unable to play cricket due to the pandemic in the last two years. However, this devastating turn of events has made the tiny cricket enthusiastic nation sad.
"Unfortunately, despite everyone in Cricket PNG being fully vaccinated, Covid has robbed us of the opportunity to play international cricket once again. The board, management, staff and players are all devastated at this turn of events,” the release added.
The ICC has yet not announced any replacement and with the tournament just a few weeks away, it looks like there would be no replacements either. Out of the nine teams competing now, only three would make it to the World Cup in February 2022 in New Zealand where they would compete with hosts and four other top nations in Australia, England, India and South Africa.