Windies and India will now contest their white-ball series in two stadia instead of six to reduce biosecurity risks amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced recently.
Initially, the six-match series was slated for February 6 through 20 at individual venues. But, the BCCI said Saturday, the three-match One-Day International (ODI) phase will now take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. And the three-match Twenty20 segment will happen at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
“The decision to limit the series to two venues instead of six as originally announced has been done to mitigate biosecurity risks by cutting down on travel and movement of the teams, match officials, broadcasters, and other stakeholders,” a BCCI statement said.
India is battling a new wave of infections, the south-Asian nation reporting 333,533 new cases on Saturday to lift overall active cases to 2.1 million.
The country has recorded just more than 39 million cases and 489,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
West Indies games last year
Last December, the Windies had to abort the ODI phase of their tour of Pakistan following the three-match T20I segment after a COVID-19 outbreak in the camp left them with a threadbare squad.
Late last year, the BCCI had identified Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Kolkata as venues for the three ODIs and Cuttack, Visakhapatnam, and Thiruvananthapuram for the T20 Internationals.
Since then, however, cases have multiplied quickly as the highly transmissible Omicron variant has taken root across the country.
The series will be the West Indies’ first overseas trip of the year and will come on the heels of their ongoing five-match T20 International series in Barbados against world number one England.
West Indies last toured India in December 2019, losing both the ODI and T20I series by 2-1 margins.
(CMC)
