2020 cricket world cup
2020 cricket world cup
The International Cricket Council (ICC) today confirmed that the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2020 that was postponed due to COVID-19 will be held in Australia in 2022. India will host the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 as planned.
ICC Cricket T20 World Cup 2020 Schedule
2020 cricket world cup
India to host 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup; Women’s ODI World Cup postponed to 2022
The International Cricket Council (ICC) today confirmed that the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2020 that was postponed due to COVID-19 will be held in Australia in 2022. India will host the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 as planned. In a major development, the International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup, which was originally scheduled to take place in October- November in Australia, has been postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The men's Twenty20 World Cup that was due to be played in Australia later this year will now be played in 2022.
It comes after the ICC announced in July that the World Cup would have to be moved from its October-November slot this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The tournament, now being held in October and November of 2022, will come after another men's T20 World Cup in India from October 17 to November 14 next year. Cricket Australia said pushing the 2020 edition back two years meant fans of teams from around the world should be able to go to games. All the teams that qualified for the 2020 men's tournament will play in 2021 in India, but there will be a new qualifying process for the 2022 World Cup.
People who had tickets for the 2020 games will be refunded in full, with a revised schedule to be announced.
Coronavirus has also forced the women's 50-over World Cup that was slated for 2021 in New Zealand to move to a February-March 2022 schedule, with the remaining qualifying games to be played in 2021.
Meanwhile, the windows for the next three ICC men’s events were also agreed during the meeting in order to bring clarity to the calendar and give the sport the best possible opportunity over the next three years to recover from the disruption caused by the novel virus.
The windows for the three major ICC men’s events are as follows:
- ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 will be held October – November 2021 with the final on November 14, 2021
- ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 will be held October – November 2022 with the final on November 13, 2022
- ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 will be held in India October – November 2023 with the final on November 16, 2023
The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 in New Zealand has been postponed until February – March 2022 because of the impact the pandemic has had on cricket globally.
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.
ICC Acting Chairman Imran Khwaja said: “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.
“The decisions the Board have taken today are in the best interests of the sport, our partners and importantly our fans. 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.”
ICC 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.
“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.”
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.
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.
India has retained the rights to host the 2021 men's T20 World Cup while Australia have been asked to host the 2022 edition. In another significant decision, the ICC also postponed the 2021 women's ODI World Cup which was scheduled in New Zealand between February and March, to 2022. All these decisions were taken by the ICC Business Corporation, the business development wing of the ICC, which met virtually on Friday.
The 2021 event will be hosted in India between October-November next year, with the final scheduled on November 14. Australia, which was originally meant to host the 2020 edition, will now host the tournament in 2022 between October-November with the final scheduled for November 13.
This women's World Cup is the second global event the ICC has been forced to postpone in the last two months due to the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In July, the ICC Board had deferred the 2020 men's T20 World Cup, scheduled in October-November in Australia this year to next year.
The board had given the nod to the ICC management to create fresh windows for the three marquee global events: the T20 World Cups in October-November 2021 and October-November 2022, and the ODI World Cup in October-November 2023, pushed back from its original March-April window.
How did India retain the rights?
Although it confirmed the development, the ICC did not give any precise reason as to why India had retained the right to host the event "as planned". However, ESPNcricinfo understands the decision for the IBC, which comprises all the members of the ICC Board, became easier once Cricket Australia chairman Earl Eddings said his board would not be able to commit the support of the Australian government to host the tournament in 2021.
It is understood that Eddings said that although CA would prefer hosting the event next year, it could not guarantee the government's support at this point. Government backing is key to hosting global events, and the ICC needed a guaranteed undertaking from the host board.
It is understood that Sourav Ganguly, the BCCI president, said his board was confident it would get the Indian government's support, which helped the IBC make its decision to retain India as the hosts as per the original schedule of global events.
Another thing that went in India's favour is that ICC would not need to change its contractual agreements with its commercial partners for the 2021 edition, since it was staying in India. As for the contractual agreements for the 2020 event which was postponed, the ICC will need to rework them for 2022 - but the ICC felt that was more helpful commercially.
This means there will be no global event for nearly 18 months since the ICC hosted the women's T20 World Cup in February-March this year, which was played in Australia. What it also means is that in 2022, which was meant to be a gap year without any global event, there will now be four ICC events.
The year will start with the Under-19 World Cup in January in the Caribbean, followed by the women's ODI World Cup in New Zealand in February-March, then the men's T20 World Cup in October-November in Australia, and be bookended by the women's T20 World Cup in South Africa.
