The coronavirus pandemic has been wreaking havoc across the world at the moment. All major sporting events across the globe from different sports have already been canceled. The cricket is no different in this as already many cricket events have been affected by it. The next mega-event in this list is going to be ICC T20 World Cup 2020. At the current moment, the entire world has come to a standstill and people across the globe are advised to stay inside their homes. In the cricketing world, all the major international events including bilateral series and domestic events have been called off.
The BCCI called off the 3-match ODI series against the Proteas earlier this month. They also suspended the IPL 2020 till April 15 and there are reports which suggest that the IPL 2020 could be canceled owing to the COVID 19. While Pakistan had to call-off the PSL 2020 just before the knockout stage, New Zealand, Australia, England, and other major cricket-playing nations have suspended their all cricketing fixtures including domestic and international.
As things stand, it looks like the T20 World Cup will also be affected by the coronavirus outbreak. The T20 extravaganza is scheduled to be played in Australia in October this year. Although there are still a few months left for the tournament, the ICC is considering postponing the tournament for now. Reports also suggest that if the tournament is postponed or canceled this year then it would be difficult to organize the tournament before 2022.
“The question being internally discussed was to postpone it but there was no status quo on ‘until when?’ Well, India is scheduled to tour Australia in December. Early next year, Australia have their Big Bash scheduled.
“March would not be an ideal time to begin in April because the broadcaster won’t agree to back-to-back T20 events. India is anyways hosting the 2021 T20 World Cup. So, the ideal choice has to be 2022.”
said a source from ICC as quoted by The Times of India.