The Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC), on Wednesday, introduced that gamers of South Africa and the West Indies are on track to return dwelling after a delay on account of airspace disruption amid the continued West Asia battle.
Members of South Africa and the West Indies contingents have been stranded in India after their groups have been knocked out of the ICC Males’s T20 World Cup 2026.
“On present preparations, the South Africa contingent will start departing for South Africa tonight, with all members anticipated to have departed inside the subsequent 36 hours,” the ICC mentioned in a press release.
“Of the West Indies contingent, 9 members are already travelling to the Caribbean, whereas the remaining 16 are booked on flights departing India inside the subsequent 24 hours. We are going to present updates on additional departures as confirmed preparations are in place.”
The West Indies exited the event on March 1, after dropping to eventual champion India, whereas South Africa was knocked out three days later, following a defeat to New Zealand within the semifinal.
However their return remained a problem, with the West Asian airspace frozen because of the battle involving the US, Iran and Israel.
“The delay is the direct results of the continued disaster throughout the Gulf area, which has prompted widespread and persevering with disruption to worldwide air journey, together with airspace closures, missile warnings, re-routing constraints, in addition to the cancellation and rescheduling of each business and constitution flights at brief discover,” the ICC added.
“These are situations completely outdoors the ICC’s management, they usually have made every journey answer considerably extra complicated and time-consuming than below regular circumstances.”
Quite the opposite, England, which misplaced the opposite semifinal to India, flew dwelling safely on March 7, resulting in accusations of bias towards the ICC.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan was quoted as telling the BBC, “The ability is all unsuitable. All groups on this state of affairs ought to be handled the identical,” he mentioned. “Simply since you are extra highly effective on the ICC desk shouldn’t depend.”
However the ICC rejected such claims, calling them ‘unhelpful’ and ‘incorrect’ and solutions from ‘folks uninformed of the state of affairs.’
“There isn’t a hyperlink between preparations made within the instances of South Africa and the West Indies and people made beforehand for England or another nation, which arose from separate circumstances, routing choices and completely different journey situations,” ICC mentioned.
“All through this era, the ICC’s overriding precedence has been the security and welfare of everybody affected, together with gamers travelling with spouses and younger kids. We is not going to transfer folks till we’re glad that the journey answer in place is secure, and that dedication is not going to change.”
Revealed on Mar 11, 2026