International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced that the Men’s qualifiers for 2022 T20 World Cup for the East Asia-Pacific region has been cancelled owing to COVID-19 pandemic travel and safety restrictions in the region. Earlier, Japan Cricket Association (JCA) were awarded the hosting rights for the qualifiers from the East Asia-Pacific region for 2022 ICC T20 World Cup in Australia.
The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup EAP qualifier was scheduled to take place from 11th – 16th October 2021 at Sano International Cricket ground, where team’s from Cook Islands, Fiji, Indonesia, Philippines, Samoa, South Korea, Vanuatu and the host’s were to compete, with the winner booking their place in one of the 8-nation T20 World Cup qualifiers scheduled for February and May 2022. Philippines team, who began their preparations for the qualifiers in Australia, have now qualified based on their ICC T20I Team rankings as of 30 April 2020 in the East Asia-Pacific region.
With Papua New Guinea already featuring in the 2021 ICC T20 World Cup in Oman and UAE and based on their performances will either be placed directly in the T20 World Cup qualifiers in 2022 or gain direct entry by virtue of finishing in the top 11 nations at the end of 2021 T20 World Cup, the East Asia-Pacific qualifiers presented a big opportunity for another Associate member from the region to feature in the global qualifiers for the first time.
The EAP qualifiers would have seen the return of Cook Islands in the fray, after their regular appearances during the 2012, 2013 and 2014 editions of the sub-regional qualification process. The competition between the pacific countries was expected to be tougher as most of them involved in the ICC competition competed against each other in the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa and played out closely contested matches.
