Cricket West Indies’ Chief Executive Officer, Johnny Grave, says that most of the support staff and the players from the men and women’s senior teams are fully vaccinated.
He made this disclosure earlier this week while appearing on the Mason and Guest radio show.
The issue of vaccinations has come under the microscope after the second One Day International against Australia was postponed Thursday folliwng a positive COVID-19 test by one of the home team’s support staff.,
“In the case of the men’s players I think we have four players in total across all three squads that aren’t fully vaccinated at this stage [and] all the support staff are at this stage,” Grave stated on the radio show.
He did not divulge if the four players who aren’t fully vaccinated did so by choice but reckons that logistics played a part. After the staff tested positive, Grave issued a statement saying that it was confirmed that a non-playing member of the West Indies staff tested positive and that everyone will remain in isolation until they are tested once again.
The CEO highlighted, “I think we’ve got two players in the women’s squad that aren’t fully vaccinated and that is purely age related because they are under 18 [years old]. All of the support staff of the women are fully vaccinated now and we must acknowledge the government of Antigua and Barbuda who administered all of those vaccinations for the players and support staff.”
The Englishman also thanked the governments of St. Lucia and Grenada who have assisted in administering over 100 vaccines with the nurses coming out to administer the doses within the bio-secure environment.
Looking ahead, Grave was optimistic that there can be a case where everyone involved is fully vaccinated by the end of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) to which could mean an easier flow into returning to normalcy by 2022.
“We hope certainly by the end of the summer and CPL, everyone within West Indies Cricket from a men and women’s perspective, on and off the field including events staff, groundsmen, cleaners and catering staff will be fully vaccinated. That would allow us to move more freely and to host more cricket,” Grave contended. He explained, “We are huge advocates of the vaccination, we are working with CARPHA (Caribbean Public Health Agency) and the regional governments to get our vaccination messages to our players and through our channels to promote what we believe is the best way out of the pandemic which is for everyone to be fully vaccinated.”
