Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is hoping to have some international Women’s cricket in the country this year, as the board is planning to host a Tri-series featuring India Women and South Africa Women later this year.
This year’s T20 World Cup 2020 held in Australia was a major breakthrough for the Women’s cricket before the COVID-19 pandemic brought all sporting activities to a halt in March.
However, the cricketing actions are gearing up to slowly return to life and ECB wants to bring back some women’s cricket in the country as well after becoming the first side to allow the resumption of the international game next month – a Test series against West Indies for Joe Root and his team.
Indian Women’s team was scheduled to play a bilateral series comprising three One-Day Internationals and three Twenty20 Internationals against England, but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the ECB is looking to host a Tri-series later this summer.
On Wednesday, June 10, the ECB Chief Executive Tom Harrison has revealed that the board is in talks with the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) and Cricket South Africa (CSA) regarding a Tri-series as they are hoping to have some women’s actions this year if everything goes as planned.
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Harrison said on the Tuffers and Vaughan podcast: “Ultimately, we will get some international cricket, all being well. The plan is to get some international cricket for the England team later this summer.”
He further added, “We're talking to the BCCI and Cricket South Africa about bringing their women's teams over to play a tri-series. So, we've something to celebrate with the women's game, in September this year. We're desperate to continue the momentum, the growth in the women's game which has been so astonishing in the last few years.”
However, the ECB official said a decision on inviting India for the tri-series will depend on how the country fights COVID-19 pandemic as there is no sign of improvement in the subcontinent.
He further explained, “There's a huge amount of work going on but we're not controlling every part of this decision. One of the things that has become clear about this crisis is when you're dealing with international teams, you're dealing with the COVID environment here and overseas as well.
If we were in the eye of the storm a few weeks ago, in this country, it very much now looks like that has moved to the subcontinent where they're experiencing their very tough moment with this pandemic. And hopefully, they can get over that quickly which will enable us to bring the team over.”
Noteworthy, Britain has so far recorded over 285000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with more than 40,000 deaths and Harrison hopes the UK makes progress in defeating the deadly virus.
He signed off by saying, “Hopefully we continue to make progress in defeating this virus and we can have a good tri-series with India and South Africa towards the end of the summer.”
(With PTI Inputs)
