Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) vice-president Rajeev Shukla gave an update that team India will travel from Barbados to Delhi on Wednesday evening.
The team has been stuck in Barbados amidst Hurricane Beryl after winning the T20 World final against South Africa by seven runs on Saturday last week.
“Thank God team India is flying back from Barbados this evening to Delhi. Will be reaching tomorrow evening. They were stuck for three days there because of a massive hurricane,” Shukla posted on his X account (formerly known as Twitter)
“@BCCI has made all arrangements for safe flight of players back home. BCCI secretary @JayShah (Jay Shah) himself is monitoring the whole situation,” Shukla further added.
An Air India special charter flight named AIC24WC — Air India Champions 24 World Cup — is set to bring back the Indian squad, its support staff, the players’ families some board officials, and Indian media.
However, there have been multiple reports suggesting the flight has been further delayed and the team is expected to land in the capital on Thursday morning.
The flight, which took off from New Jersey, USA on July 2, is expected to land in Barbados around 2 am local time. As per the schedule, the flight is now expected to take off from Barbados at 4:30am (local time) according to PTI.
It will take a 16-hour flying time to reach Delhi, where the team will land on Thursday at 6 am (IST) if there are no further delays in their departure.
The Grantley Adams International airport here resumed its operations on Tuesday. Earlier, the Indian team was scheduled to leave around 6 pm local time on July 2 and arrive at 7.45pm (IST) on Wednesday.
The players are set to be felicitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the schedule of that event has not yet been finalised. Hurricane Beryl has now become a Category 4 storm moving down from Category 5 and is headed towards Jamaica.
With agency inputs
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