Victorious Team India’s return journey: Airport will open in ‘next six to 12 hours’ says Barbados PM

Indian cricket team, stranded in Barbados due to hurricane, set to fly home after T20 World Cup victory.

The T20 World Cup-winning Indian cricket team is set to fly home aboard a charter flight on Tuesday, July 2 evening after Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said she expects the airport here to become operational in the "next six to 12 hours", ending the shutdown forced by a category 4 hurricane.

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The Rohit Sharma-led squad, its support staff, some BCCI officials, and the players' families have been stranded here for the past two days due to hurricane Beryl. The team won the title on Saturday, June 29, 2024, after defeating South Africa by seven runs in the final.

The contingent is expected to leave Bridgetown at 6pm (local time) and land in Delhi on Wednesday, July 2 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.

Earlier, Mottley gave an update on the situation here.

"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," Ms. 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.