WELLINGTON: The ability to play matches with only nine players is one of the flexible arrangements established by tournament officials to ensure the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2022 in New Zealand works as smoothly as possible next month.

While organizers remain optimistic that the 31-day event will go through as planned, plans have been put in place to deal with the ongoing Covid outbreak and rising case numbers in New Zealand.

Teams will be permitted to have two female support staff substitute on the field during a match with nine players, and the ability to reschedule fixtures is one of the contingencies put in place.

"From a COVID perspective, we need to be a little bit flexible, as far as the way in which we manage the game to take into account these unique circumstances," ICC Head of Events Chris Tetley said.

"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 travelling 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.

"There's an opportunity for players to contract Covid, but then to be able to come back. It's important that we do everything we can to try and maximise opportunities for the best players in the world to show their skills at a World Cup.

"If it becomes necessary, we would allow a team to field nine players as an exception for this environment and if they had female substitutes from within their management team, we would enable two substitutes to play, non-batting, non-bowling, but to enable a game to take place."

Tetley also stated that the ICC will be able to use unlimited Super Overs within games to ensure that results are reached on the day they are scheduled.

"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 added.

"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."

Edited - SportsAction / Inputs - Agency