Welcome to The Indian Awaaz   Click to listen highlighted text! Welcome to The Indian Awaaz

Harpal Singh Bedi

New Delhi: India will host the ICC T20 World Cup next year as planned while the tournament slated to be held this year will be played in Australia in 2022.  

The International Cricket Council on Friday while confirming the dates for the Men’s T20 tournaments decided to postpone the Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand till February – March 2022

The decisions were taken by the IBC (the commercial subsidiary of the ICC) following an extensive contingency planning exercise which has taken into account the health, cricket and commercial impact of COVID-19 around the world. 

According to ICC Acting Chairman Imran Khwaja “The decisions the Board have taken today are in the best interests of the sport, our partners and importantly our fans. 

“Over the last few months as we have considered how we return to staging global events, our number one priority has been to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in ICC events. 

“I’d like to thank our partners at the BCCI, Cricket Australia and Cricket New Zealand as well as the Australian and New Zealand governments for their continued support and commitment to a safe return to ICC events.” 

The format of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 will remain as it was for 2020 and all teams that qualified for that event will now participate in India in 2021.  

A new qualification process will be run for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022. 

 Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said: “We now have absolute clarity on the future of ICC events enabling all of our Members to focus on the rescheduling of lost international and domestic cricket.  

“We will now proceed as planned with the Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 in India and host the 2022 edition in Australia” 

“We have taken the decision to move the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup to give players from every competing nation, the best opportunity to be ready for the world’s biggest stage and there is still a global qualifier to complete to decide the final three teams.” He opined 

“There has been no women’s International cricket played since the conclusion of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup earlier this year and due to the varying impact of COVID-19 globally that is likely to remain the situation for a number of the teams.  

“Moving the event by 12 months gives all competing teams the chance to play a sufficient level of cricket ahead of both the qualification event and leading into a Cricket World Cup so the integrity of the tournament is maintained.” He said 

The format of the postponed ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup will remain as it was for 2021. Five teams have already qualified for the event and that will stand for 2022.  

The original global qualification event to determine the final three teams to contest the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup was scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in July 2020, but this was postponed due to COVID-19. The qualification event will now be held in 2021. 

After ICC’s decision to postpone the T20 World Cup, BCCI decided to use the vacant window to announce the dates for the Indian Premier League. The IPL will be held in the UAE from September 19 to November 10.  

Click to listen highlighted text!