Cricket Australia on Friday (May 29) admitted that there is "very high risk" of this year's T20 World Cup being postponed and the board is bracing up to endure massive revenue loss.
Speaking to reporters, CA chief executive Kevin Roberts stated that the fate of T20 World Cup, slated to be held down under from October 18 to November 15, is uncertain because of travel restrictions caused by the global COVID-19 outbreak.
"We have been hopeful all along that it could be staged in October-November but you would have to say there's a very high risk about the prospect of that happening," Roberts said.
Meanwhile, the ICC has deferred a decision on the showpiece tournament till June 10, saying it wants to look at contingency plans for some more time.
CA is well aware of the revenue loss even if the marquee event goes ahead as per plan since it will be played in empty stadiums because of the social distancing regulations.
"The likelihood of significant crowds is very slim - ordinarily that would deliver well over AUD 50m revenue to CA.
"And it's likely that our bio-security measures that we need to put in place to deliver the season will cost in the order of AUD 10m," Roberts said.
The CA chief, however, is more confident of hosting the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the end of the year.
The Virat Kohli-led Indian team are scheduled to visit Australia to play four Tests in Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.
As per the itinerary, the much-awaited Test series will be played from December 3 to January 7 but Roberts said there is every possibility of a tweak in the fixtures.
"That (schedule) assumes that state borders are open to domestic travel. It may be that circumstances dictate that when the time comes maybe we can only use one or two venues, we really don't know any of that yet.
"There is a lot of variables based on whether we have four venues in four states or as little as one venue in one state," he said.
"There's endless scenarios and possibilities ... we're very optimistic that we will be able to stage the Indian men's tour and the other inbound tours for the season. But we're realistic enough to know they will look very different to a normal summer," Roberts added.
(With PTI inputs)
