While the whole planet is under the grasp of the coronavirus pandemic and figuring out ways to come out of the global crisis, sports as a whole could see the entire 2020 year activities getting completely wiped out (either postponed or cancelled) from the history record books. Cricket, is no different and ICC and the full member boards are already having headaches in trying to figure out ways to reschedule the International calender with top-notch events like T20 World Cup, Asia Cup, Bi-lateral series and so forth.
Associate cricket have been hit badly in the wake of this, as most of the ICC events like Challenge League, League 2 and T20 World Cup qualifiers until the end of Jun 2020 have already been postponed. However, as per the FTP calender updated by ICC as of 15th Jan 2020, there were many proposed bi-lateral arrangements made between fellow Associate members with ODI status until 2021 and now stand uncertain as when International cricket resumes (and it is a big “when”), the ICC events will definitely take more priority to get finished as they count towards qualification process for 2021 T20 World Cup and 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Among the proposed series under the Associate FTP 2019-2023 were a 3-match ODI series between USA and Netherlands in South Africa, Namibia’s 2-match T20I series against Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby and 3-match T20I series at home, running adjacent to the schedules League 2 rounds in the respective countries. Nepal were to host Netherlands for a 3-match series each in ODI and T20I formats in Apr 2021 under the proposed calender, while Scotland and PNG were to play a 2-match T20I series running adjacent to League 2 round.
Nepal were also scheduled to host USA for a 3-match T20I series in Aug 2021, running adjacent to League 2 round being hosted by them. Also, Scotland were scheduled to host Oman for a 3-match T20I series and UAE were scheduled to host Nepal for a 3-match T20I series in Jan 2022, running adjacent to League 2 rounds in the respective countries.
