Indian cricketers still trapped in Barbados after storm

The T20 World Cup winning Indian cricket team may be able to fly home on Tuesday evening. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said she hopes the airport here will be operational in the "next six to 12 hours". Let us tell you, Beryl has been placed in the fourth category storm and due to this a shutdown has been imposed in Barbados for the last few days. The Rohit Sharma-led team, its support staff, some BCCI officials and the players' families have been stranded here for the last two days due to storm Beryl. The team won the title by defeating South Africa by seven runs in the final on Saturday. But since then the team has not been able to return home. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who is overseeing relief operations on the ground, said, "We are hopeful, and we are working towards that today. I don't want to say anything about it in advance, but I am in touch with the airport personnel and they are now doing their final checks and we want to resume normal operations as soon as possible." Mia Mottley further said, "There are many people who were supposed to leave late last night or today or tomorrow morning. And we want to make sure that we can facilitate those people, so I hope that the airport will be open within the next six to 12 hours."

Deadly winds and storms wreaked havoc on Barbados and surrounding islands on Monday. The country with a population of about 300,000 has been in lockdown since Sunday evening. Mia Motley further said, "(We) are working to make sure that everyone in Barbados is safe, Barbadians and all the visitors, of course, who came for the Cricket World Cup. We were very fortunate that the storm did not make landfall." Motley said, "The storm was 80 miles south of us, which limited the level of damage on the coast. But as you can see, our coastline, infrastructure and coastal properties have been badly damaged." Motley said, "It could have been much worse, but now it's time to improve and clean up." There is very little time to leave Bridgetown, as Motley revealed that "we have another storm coming on Wednesday." He hoped that the Indians, who have been staying in their hotel since winning the trophy, would be in good mood and enthusiasm despite the lockdown. "I'm sure that, even though the storm went through, they're in a very, very, very good mood and in high spirits and the same mood they were when they won the title on Saturday," Motley said.