Marquee event put off to next year in wake of COVID-19 pandemic; decks cleared for BCCI to organise IPL
The mens trophy is seen during a ICC 2020 T20 World Cup Media Opportunity at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Sydney, Australia. Pic/Getty Images
The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday postponed the T20 World Cup in Australia owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, a long-anticipated decision which paves the way for the BCCI to organise the IPL during the October-November window. The ICC hasn't yet decided whether India and Australia will swap the 2021 and 2022 editions between them, both of which will be held in the October-November window.
2023 ODI WC in Oct-Nov
The ICC men's ODI World Cup in India will now be held October-November 2023 to allow a longer qualification period to all teams. Normally the World Cups in India are held between February and March as it happened in 1996 and 2011 but way back in 1987 (Reliance World Cup), it was held during the festive season.
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The ICC T20 World Cup was scheduled Down Under from October 18 to November 15 but Cricket Australia, in the month of May itself, had intimated ICC that it would be near impossible to stage a closed-door event of this magnitude which would also require quarantine arrangement for 16 international teams.
As far as hosting of this edition is concerned, ICC's commercial wing will be monitoring various modalities before coming to a decision on whether India will host the 2021 edition or swap with Cricket Australia and host theirs in 2022.
There has been no formal announcement but there is a possibility that BCCI might shift the IPL to the United Arab Emirates taking India's COVID-19 case load into account. The other option is having a twin-city closed door bio-secure event, which was the first preference of at least one of the stakeholders.
The IPL will likely start in the last week of September and end in the second week of November. "We were waiting for the formal announcement. Now we can at least submit our plans to the government and wait for their necessary clearances. There is scheduling, logistics, operational aspects that needs to be taken care of," a BCCI official said.
Nomination process
Meanwhile, the ICC didn't announce the nomination process for its next independent chairman to replace Shahshank Manohar as it has been learnt that members are yet to reach unanimity regarding their choice for the next head of the global body.
PTI
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