T20 World Cup 2020 To Be Delayed By A Year

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday confirmed that 2020 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia has been postponed due to the ongoing pandemic. The tournament will now be held in the October-November window next year, with the final slated for November 14.
In fact, the IBC Board (the commercial subsidiary of world cricket’s governing body) decided on the windows for the next three ICC men’s events 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 Covid-19”.
That means the men’s T20 World Cup scheduled to be held in 2021 — two men’s T20 World Cups were scheduled to be held in back-to-back years — has also been pushed back a year, to October-November 2022, with the final on November 13. However, one decision not yet made is in which order Australia and India will host the T20 World Cups. In the original rights cycle, India was scheduled to host the event in 2021, after this year’s event in Australia.
And while India will be hosting the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, the original window of February-March was pushed back to October-November, with the summit clash on November 26. The Women’s World Cup, in New Zealand in February next year, has not yet been postponed, with the ICC saying that planning for the event continues “as scheduled”.
Though the announcement took some time, it isn’t a surprise. Cricket Australia (CA) had reiterated more than once that it was going to be difficult to host the tournament during the pandemic with 16 teams taking part. The then CA chief executive Kevin Roberts had said in May that it was a “very high risk” to conduct the tournament. Later, CA chairman Earl Eddings echoed the pessimism, saying it was “unlikely” and “unrealistic” when the pandemic was “spiking” worldwide.
Score update: England beat West Indies by 113 runs in the second Test at Old Trafford on Monday to level the three-match series 1-1. Ben Stokes was named Player of the Match. The final Test begins on Friday, at the same venue.