The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Cricket Australia (CA) heads are set to connect virtually to discuss swapping the hosting rights of 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cup editions on Friday (August 7) when the all-important ICC board meeting takes place.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, secretary Jay Shah and CA's chairman Earl Eddings, interim CEO Nick Hockley will try and reach an agreement over hosting of the next two editions of ICC's flagship event.
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"The main agenda of the meeting is scheduling of ICC tournaments including the women's ODI World Cup in New Zealand early next year. It is expected that some decisions will be taken," an ICC Board member told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
Originally due to be held in October-November, the 2020 edition of the T20 World Cup was deferred because of the logistical challenges of conducting the entire 16-team competition in Australia amid COVID-19 pandemic.
The ICC was forced to shift the tournament within the existing FTP, resulting in a successive arrangement over the next two years. However, it remains unclear who will host when.
According to the PTI report, "It is expected that Cricket Australia will like to host the T20 World Cup in October 2021 as it had already started preparations and wouldn't like to wait for two years but BCCI also doesn't want to forego its right to host the tournament in 2021."
"The BCCI was originally scheduled to host the T20 World Cup in 2021 and they would like to go ahead. Another reason being, hosting a T20 World Cup in 2022 and then a 50 over global event within a gap of just one year. It would be an overkill," another ICC board member was quoted as saying.
Given the pandemic situation in India and the ticketing refund issue, CA may just get to host the 2021 tournament. "The ICC website states that those who have booked match tickets for Australia World T20 event should wait till further announcement. The reason being CA wants to host the event next year," the ICC board member said.
The board member also hinted that the Women's ODI World Cup could still take place on time in February-March next year in New Zealand.
"Yes, the qualification tournament is yet to be finished and since every country's COVID situation is different, that is one headache that the ICC has. Going by health safety issues, New Zealand is one of the best-performing nations globally," the member said.
(Inputs from PTI)
