Considering the severe health crisis posed by second COVID-19 wave in India, it has become immensely challenging to stage the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 in the country, slated to be held in October-November.

However, the BCCI hasn’t given up hopes of conducting it, and shifting the showpiece tournament to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the contingency plan instead of swapping the hosting rights with Australia, due to organize the T20 World Cup 2022.

"It would be the UAE," Dhiraj Malhotra, BCCI's General Manager of Game Development, told the BBC's Stumped podcast.

"We're hoping again that it would be done by the BCCI. So, we'll take the tournament there, but it'll still be done by the BCCI.

"I've just been named one of the tournament directors, so I'm doing everything we can to make sure it happens (in India).

"We will be doing normal scenario, COVID scenario and worst-case scenario, so with all that we're talking to the ICC at the moment.

"As of now, we are targeting and looking at ticket sales and people travelling from all over the world. But again, we don't know what the situation will be at that point in time (in October)."

Before the latest COVID-19 surge, BCCI has zeroed in on nine venues for the T20 World Cup – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Dharamsala. But the unprecedented healthy crisis caused by the second wave of infections – 379,257 cases and 3645 new deaths were reported on Thursday (April 29) – has put the plans in jeopardy.

The Indian board has no option but to wait for the health condition to improve and travel bans imposed by several countries to be lifted before they can think of holding a global event.