The prospects of the men’s T20 World Cup in Australia is dwindling by the day, the ICC is also looking at different alternatives to get the tournament held at an opportune time in a new bracket.
If the ICC does indeed want to go ahead with the tournament, they will have to bite the bullet and make few tweaks in the FTP and shuffle around the calendar as far as the schedule of their own events are concerned.
Here are the few windows which can be explored:
February-March 2021. Venue: Australia
This is one bracket which can be explored, but for it see the light of the day, the ICC will have to reschedule the 2021 women’s ODI World Cup which is slated to be held between February 6 and March 7 in New Zealand. This tournament can be moved to the starting of January and then the T20 World Cup can be played immediately after this conclusion.
It needs to be mentioned here that later that year, India is also scheduled to hold another T20 World Cup and hence, it will be interesting to see if the broadcasters are willing enough to go in with as many as 3 ICC tournaments in one single year.
October-November, 2021. Venue: Australia
This will be similar to the Tokyo Olympics 2020 and the entire tournament can be pushed back by one year and replace the 2021 T20 World Cup which is scheduled in India.
As things stand right now, there is a tussle between the ICC and BCCI owing to tax exemptions. Now, there could be the small prospect of ICC convincing the BCCI to push their 2021 T20 World Cup to 2022, but then the country is also hosting the 2023 50 overs World Cup and two back-to-back tournaments could mean that the BCCI will have to compromise on its home calendar, which can be tricky proposition.
“As for one of the ideas that BCCI may hand the hosting rights of the 2021 edition to CA and us hosting the 2022 edition of the T20 World Cup, I honestly don’t see that happening. If the T20 World Cup doesn’t happen in Australia in 2020 then it will in 2022 is what we feel,” A BCCI official had earlier told news agency IANS.
February-March, 2022. Venue: Australia
This is another possibility where Australia host this year’s T20 World Cup in the beginning of 2022 as this a free slot for the ICC.
However, this could be tricky if India too holds the T20 World Cup in 2021 which will see only five months between the two editions and hence, teams might not too be enthused with this prospect and the broadcasters might not want to market two marquee tournaments with the same zeal.
Also, since Australia playing an Ashes, would they want to go head on into a global tournament immediately after the 5-Tests series.
No one wants to be world champions for just five months and this would need a lot of convincing if the ICC is looking at getting the tournament squeezed in this window.
October-November, 2022. Venue: Australia
What if the tournament is pushed to exactly 2 years from now. Australia will still get to host the tournament in their summer and everything will fall into place.
However, with the 2023 World Cup (50 overs) slated to be held in India in February-March, the broadcasters will be left in a predicament to market two ICC tournaments and enthuse spectators twice in five months.
It needs to be mentioned here that these brackets do come into existence once the pandemic has been controlled, and once the world starts limping back to some semblance of normalcy.
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