The International Cricket Council (ICC) has officially announced the postponement of the T20 World Cup 2020 which was supposed to be hosted by Australia in October-November this year. This is due to the inability of Cricket Australia to guarantee preparations amidst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
The IBC board (the commercial subsidiary of the ICC), in today’s meeting, agreed to the windows for the next three ICC men’s events so as to bring clarity to the calendar and give the sport the best possible opportunity over the next three years to recover from the disruption caused by COVID-19.
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The windows for the Men’s events are:
ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 will be held October – November 2021 with the final on 14 November 2021
ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 will be held October – November 2022 with the final on 13 November 2022
ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 will be held in India October – November 2023 with the final on 26 November 2023
The board also agreed to continuously monitor the changing situation and assess all information needed to make a considered decision on future hosts to ensure the sport is able to stage safe and successful global events in 2021 and 2022.
The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 to be hosted by New Zealand in February next year, will be planned as scheduled for now, with the ICC continuing to evaluate the situation.
“The decision to postpone the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup was taken after careful consideration of all of the options available to us and gives us the best possible opportunity of delivering two safe and successful T20 World Cups for fans around the world,” ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said.
“Our members now have the clarity they need around event windows to enable them to reschedule lost bilateral and domestic cricket. Moving the Men’s Cricket World Cup to a later window is a critical element of this and gives us a better chance of maintaining the integrity of the qualification process. This additional time will be used to reschedule games that might be lost because of the pandemic ensuring qualification can be decided on the field of play,” he added.
(ICC inputs)
