Due to positive Covid tests within the squad, the Kumul Petroleum PNG Lewas have been forced to withdraw from the ICC World Cup Qualifiers in Zimbabwe this month. The team went into quarantine on October 30 in preparation for their planned departure on November 6.
Multiple PCR tests have been done on nearly a daily basis to try to give players the opportunity to test negative. 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.
The tour involved early entry to Zimbabwe where the Lewas after two years of no international competition due to Covid were going to be able to acclimatise prior to the World Cup Qualifiers. The team would have been playing the West Indies, Netherlands, Ireland, and Sri Lanka in the group phase of the World Cup Qualifiers, seeking to qualify for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2022 in New Zealand.
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. Months of hard work have gone into this tour, and to be robbed by Covid before we could leave is hard to accept. 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.
While this is a cruel blow to the Kumul Petroleum PNG Lewas and to Cricket PNG, we will regroup, and we will work towards new challenges for 2022. We encourage all of PNG to get vaccinated so that we as a country can get in control of Covid.
