England white-ball captain Eoin Morgan has enlisted a host of problems with Australia hosting the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2020 as per schedule from October 18 to November 15.
The country has been successful in containing the virus by sealing its borders early and imposition travel restrictions. “I’d be surprised if it goes ahead,” Morgan was quoted as saying by the ‘Press Association’.
“My reasons for that would be if you look at how Australia has handled the pandemic, they’ve shut down the borders pretty early, had a limited number of cases and deaths in comparison to the rest of the world,” he added.
Australia has reported just over 7,100 positive cases with more than 6500 recoveries and 103 deaths.
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“Their biggest worry moving forward - a small negative to a huge positive - would be they almost don’t know what the immunity would be like if the virus does have an outbreak,” he added.
Morgan also highlighted that teams flying in from all over the world may bring in the risk of a second wave of COVID-19 infections.
“Having 16 teams across several venues has the potential to expose something. It might only be a handful of cases to be spread, but when you look at how quickly it escalates, you weigh up the chance of playing a World Cup or postponing it, (which is) probably a bigger positive,” he added.
A final decision is expected during the meeting between all cricket boards of the International Cricket Council via teleconference on Thursday.
Talking about his desire to lead England in the 2020 and 2021 T20 World Cups, Morgan said that the break due to this pandemic has given players to rest mentally.
“It doesn’t change that view for the simple reason that I think there are a lot of players that would have benefited from this break. It’s not a physical break it’s a complete mental refresh from the game that we’re grossly involved in and have been for some time. I certainly have. I feel at that stage now where I want to pick up a bat again and I’m ready to go as opposed to picking up a bat because I’m playing in three weeks’ time. That’s always a nice place to be,” Morgan added.
(PTI inputs)
