With the global Coronavirus pandemic threat continuing to loom over the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is yet to take a decision on the fate of the showpiece event to be held in Australia from October 18 to November 15 this year.
The topic of staging the T20 World Cup 2020 has now become a hot debate with some calling for it to be postponed to 2022 due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, while others feel that the authorities should “wait and watch” the situation before making any decision.
Read Also: Sangakkara reveals what caused the misunderstanding ahead of the World Cup 2011 final
Well now, Sri Lankan cricket legend and President of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Kumar Sangakkara has also opined on the matter, saying it is too early to comment about the future of the T20 World Cup 2020 and at the moment, the point of focus should be the virus and how it will act over time.
Former Sri Lanka captain further added that there are a lot of questions lingering around the COVID-19 pandemic that can only be answered by the top experts in the world and planning any tournament in the future would require those doubts to be cleared by them.
Sangakkara said on Star Sports show Cricket Connected: “The real thing is what’s going to happen with the virus. Is it going to disappear like SARS and MERS, or is this something that’s going to come back seasonally? Will we have to live with this particular virus or different strains of it from time to time or do we have to live with it long term?”
Read Also: Cricket Australia expresses interest in hosting T20 World Cup 2021: Report
He continued, “If that’s the case, then some of the changes that we have seen in our lives now, maybe the new normal for us for a few years until a vaccine is found or until there’s enough immunity globally among the people to withstand this.
So, those are really questions that I don’t think anyone can answer at the moment. We will get more clarity as time goes by. So, I can imagine sitting around a table for the ICC, trying to understand, consulting with experts to understand what’s going on. And more so, the questions that a lot of us have in our minds have still not been answered by the topmost experts in the world.”
Sangakkara signed off by saying, “Every day, there are new learnings, new things being found out, so we will have to wait and see, but the options may be to cancel it this year, postpone it to another year, but to have in place anticipatory procedures that take into account health and safety of both the players and the spectators, and make sure that’s ironclad.”
(With IANS Inputs)
