Barbados Women’s team has been selected to participate at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, England, following a decision by the CWI Board of Directors last month to postpone the 2021 T20 Blaze tournament and the 2021 Women’s CG Insurance Super50 Cup until 2022.

The 2021 CWI T20 Blaze competition was to be the West Indies qualifying tournament for the Commonwealth Games.

However, following the postponement of the competition, the Barbados Women’s team will be the representative team from the West Indies as a result of their victory in the 2020 CWI T20 Blaze tournament and in line with Commonwealth Games Association Tournament rules agreed by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

The decision to postpone regional Women’s cricket tournaments was taken with the news of the recently announced Women’s international CG Insurance ODI and T20 fixtures between West Indies and South Africa – August 31 to September 19 – and the ongoing logistical challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic requiring multiple teams to be hosted in one country.

This has made it very challenging to find a suitable scheduling window.

“We want to congratulate the Barbados Women’s team for being named to represent the West Indies in the Commonwealth Games 2022. This is an historic occasion as for the first time Women’s Twenty20 cricket will feature at this prestigious global sporting event, which is a great fillip for our sport and great exposure and opportunity for the players. We wish them all the very best as they compete for the gold medal, and we know they will continue to do West Indies proud,” said CWI CEO Johnny Grave.

“It has been a challenging period with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic at our doorstep, and we have been forced to take the decision to postpone the Women’s T20 Blaze and Women’s CG Insurance Super50 Cup for this year. We have, however, been able to invest in several High Performance Camps and international fixtures to the Women’s squad, conducted by Courtney Walsh and his coaching staff. These have been hugely beneficial to date and we have identified a core group of players who are the best available in the region for the ICC Women’s World Cup qualifiers who will benefit from the additional resources that CWI is committing to preparing the West Indies Women’s squad,” he added.

CWI has committed additional investment into West Indies Women’s cricket development with two additional High Performance Camps.

The first started in Antigua on August 9 for a three-week preparation camp ahead of the International Series against South Africa. A second camp to be held in Antigua from October 10 to October 31 has been scheduled to give the West Indies Women the best possible preparation to perform in the ICC World Cup Qualifiers starting in November.

Ahead of the World Cup Qualifiers, CWI will also confirm a further Series of warm-up One-Day Internationals to be played overseas in November. Details on this Series will be announced in coming weeks.

The Commonwealth Games are scheduled to be held from July 28 to August 8 and women’s cricket tournament will be staged for the first time at Edgbaston.