Teams can field nine players during Women's ODI World Cup if Covid-19 hits

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has said that a team can field nine players during the Women's ODI World Cup in New Zealand if there is a Covid-19 situation within the side. 

"If it becomes necessary we would allow a team to field nine players as an exception for this environment," ICC's head of events Chris Tetley said.

"And if they had female substitutes from within their management team, we would allow two substitutes to play - non-batting, non-bowling - to enable a game to take place."

The ICC had allowed the teams to have additional traveling reserves who can be replaced on a temporary basis. 

"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.”

Talking about a match being tied, Tetley explained that there will be a Super Over followed by another Super Over if the first one doesn’t give a result unlike the 2019 Men’s World Cup where the result of the final was eventually decided on the basis of boundary count. 

"I guess I couldn't talk about playing conditions in New Zealand without mentioning a Super Over, and we would have were it necessary unlimited Super Overs if we get to that point in the game," he said. 

"So we wouldn't get to the boundaries countback that we experienced in 2019, so there will be a Super Over followed by another Super Over if we need to split the teams,” he added.