Papua New Guinea withdraw from Women's World Cup qualifier due to Covid outbreak

A statement from Cricket PNG added that the only comfort to the situation was that players and support staff "had only mild or no symptoms"

Papua New Guinea have been forced to withdraw from the Women’s World Cup qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe due to a raft of positive Covid-19 tests among their travelling party.

They had planned to depart on November 6 in preparation for the competition but the numbers affected meant that PNG didn’t have enough players who had tested negative.

A statement from Cricket PNG read: “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.

“We do not have enough players for the tour who can pass the Covid test required for flying internationally, leaving the Cricket PNG Board no option other than to withdraw the team from the tour today.

“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.”

^{Last month, Papua New Guinea's men's team played in a global tournament for the first time}

The country’s women’s team has not played for almost two years because of the pandemic, and they had been due to compete in Group A with West Indies, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sri Lanka, with three spots in next year’s World Cup up for grabs at the conclusion of the Super Six stage.

“Months of hard work have gone into this tour, and to be robbed by Covid before we could leave is hard to accept,” the statement added. “Covid is in the community in PNG and despite putting in best practices, including vaccinations and quarantining players seven days early, it wasn't enough on this occasion.

“Our only comfort is that all the players and support staff who have tested positive, due to being vaccinated, have had only mild or no symptoms.”

Papua New Guinea missed out on qualification for the 2020 T20 World Cup in Australia after losing their semi-final against Thailand, who subsequently made history by reaching their first tournament.

^{Main Image: © ICC Business Corporation FZ LLC 2020}