diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 3e76c71ba1..619c1a94f6 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 4.0.2
+ * Prevent CQLSH from failure on Python 3.10 (CASSANDRA-16987)
  * Avoid trying to acquire 0 permits from the rate limiter when taking snapshot (CASSANDRA-16872)
  * Upgrade Caffeine to 2.5.6 (CASSANDRA-15153)
  * Include SASI components to snapshots (CASSANDRA-15134)
diff --git a/bin/cqlsh b/bin/cqlsh
index d13acf785b..a962e1181d 100755
--- a/bin/cqlsh
+++ b/bin/cqlsh
@@ -60,9 +60,10 @@ get_python_version() {
 # test whether a version string matches one of the supported versions for cqlsh
 is_supported_version() {
     version=$1
-    # shellcheck disable=SC2072
+    major_version="${version%.*}"
+    minor_version="${version#*.}"
     # python3.6+ is supported. python2.7 is deprecated but still compatible.
-    if [ ! "$version" \< "3.6" ] || [ "$version" = "2.7" ]; then
+    if [ "$major_version" = 3 ] && [ "$minor_version" -ge 6 ] || [ "$version" = "2.7" ]; then
         echo "supported"
     else
         echo "unsupported"