Indian Team Expected to Return from Barbados Amid Hurricane Disruptions: T20 World Cup 2024 Updates
Indian cricket team expected to fly out of Barbados on Tuesday after Hurricane Beryl. Hurricane Beryl has left the crew trapped in Barbados for the past two days.
With the airport likely to reopen in the “next six to 12 hours” due to a category 4 hurricane, Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley announced on Tuesday evening that the Indian team would return home via charter flight.
Hurricane Beryl struck the island on Sunday night, leaving the victorious T20 World Cup team, its support staff, a few BCCI officials, and the players’ families trapped in Barbados for the previous two days.
“I don’t want to speak in advance of it, but I have literally been in touch with the airport personnel and they’re doing their last checks now and we want to resume normal operations as a matter of urgency,” Mottley stated to PTI.
Many folks were scheduled to depart late last night, today, or early tomorrow morning. I would estimate that the airport will open in the next six to twelve hours because we want to make sure we can assist those people.”
According to a source, the Indian contingent is scheduled to depart Bridgetown at 6 p.m. local time and arrive in Delhi on Wednesday at 7.45 p.m. IST. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would later congratulate the players, however the exact time of the ceremony is still pending.
There is not much time left for the Indian squad to depart Bridgetown since, as Mottley stated, “we have another hurricane coming on Wednesday”.
Rinku Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shivam Dube, Khaleel Ahmed, and Sanju Samson were the five players that were initially scheduled to go to Zimbabwe for the forthcoming five-match Twenty20 International series. However, before departing for Harare, Samson, Dube, and Jaiswal will now journey to India alongside the remaining members of the T20 World Cup-winning team. Tuesday morning, the last members of the team for the series departed India.
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On Monday, Barbados and neighboring islands were battered by storms and wind that might be fatal. With a population of over 300,000, the nation has been under lockdown since Sunday night.
“[We have] been working to ensure that everyone is safe in Barbados, Barbadians and all of the visitors, of course, who came for the cricket World Cup,” Mottley stated. “The fact that the storm avoided landfall was a great blessing. The hurricane was about 80 miles south of us, thus the amount of damage on land was minimal. However, as you can see, there has been significant damage to coastal assets and infrastructure.
“It could have been a lot worse, but now is the time to do the recovery and the clean-up.”
