ICC awards hosting rights of next year’s T20 World Cup to India

KARACHI: India once again underlined the fact that it continues to enjoy great influence in world cricket on Friday when it was announced that the country will be hosting next year’s ICC Men’s Twenty20 World Cup.

Despite the fact that Australian cricket chiefs were desperate to secure hosting rights of next year’s T20 World Cup after the postponement of the 2020 edition because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Cricket Council (ICC) awarded the hosting rights of the 2021 event to India.

Australia were supposed to host this year’s T20 World Cup in October-November but the ICC was forced to relocate the event to next year because of the pandemic. Cricket Australia made desperate attempts to gain the hosting rights for the next year’s tournament but under pressure from the Indian cricket board (BCCI), the ICC awarded it to India.

Following a Board meeting, the ICC 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.”

According to the ICC, the 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.

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.”

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 Men’s T20 World Cup 2022.

The format of the postponed 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 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.