Stranded India team to return home soon after Barbados storm

The Rohit Sharma-led T20 World Cup-winning Indian cricket team is likely to return home on Wednesday night (IST) after being stranded in Barbados for the last two days due to Hurricane Beryl - a category 4 hurricane - which forced the island to shut its airport completely. 

The shutdown is likely to end soon as Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said she expects the airport to become operational in the "next six to 12 hours." She made the comments around 4 am (IST) on Tuesday

India beat South Africa by seven runs in a pulsating final at the Kensington Oval to bring an end to a 13-year-long wait for a World Cup title on Saturday (June 29). Since then, the Indian cricketers, the support staff, their families and BCCI officials, including secretary Jay Shah, have been anxiously waiting for the hurricane to pass and the airports to open.

"We hope, and we're working towards later today. I don't want to speak in advance of it, but I've literally been in touch with the airport personnel and they're doing their last checks now and we want to resume to normal operations as a matter of urgency," Mottley, who has been overseeing relief operations on the ground, told PTI.

"There are a number of people who were due to leave yet last night late or today or tomorrow morning. And we want to make sure that we can facilitate those persons, so I would anticipate that within the next six to 12 hours that the airport will be open," she said.

If the Barbados airport becomes functional by 4-5 pm on Tuesday (local time), the nearly 70-member-strong Indian contingent will fly out on a charter flight.

The contingent is expected to leave Bridgetown at 6pm (local time) and land in Delhi on Wednesday at 7.45pm (IST), according to a source. The players will be later felicitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the schedule of that event has not yet been finalised.

The initial plan was to reach India via the United States but after this long delay, the BCCI are mulling a direct route to India using a charter flight. That, however, has its own challenges. According to media reports, the Caribbean islands do not have a charter aircraft to accommodate nearly 70 people. BCCI will have to fly one from the US.

Life-threatening winds and storms lashed Barbados and nearby islands on Monday. The country, with a population of close to three lakh, has been in lockdown since Sunday evening.

"(We have) been working to ensure that everyone is safe in Barbados, Barbadians and all of the visitors, of course, who came for cricket World Cup. We were very blessed that the storm did not come on land.

"The hurricane was 80 miles south of us, which limited the level of damage on shore. But as you can see, we've had costal, infrastructure and costal assets have been badly damaged," Mottley said.

"It could have been a lot worse, but now is the time to do the recovery and the cleanup."The window to leave Bridgetown is a narrow one as Mottley revealed that "we have another hurricane coming on Wednesday."She hoped that the Indians, who have stayed put at their hotel since winning the trophy, will be in high spirits despite the lockdown, having ended a title drought of 11 years.

"I'm sure that in spite of the passage of the hurricane, that they would have been in very, very, very good mood and spirit and to win in the manner that they won on Saturday. I think they will be floating on air for a little time," she quipped.