IBC (the commercial subsidiary of the ICC) meeting with stakeholders have resulted in the announcement that the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2020 that was postponed due to COVID-19 will now be held in Australia in 2022, with the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 to take place as planned in India from 17th Oct – 14th Nov.
All the qualifying teams from the T20 World Cup qualifiers held in UAE in Oct/Nov 2019, namely, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Namibia, Oman, Ireland and Scotland will now be participating in the 2021 event in India, and with the tournament format unchanged, will compete along with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in 1st round of the competition. Top 4 teams from 1st round will advance to the super 12 stage of the tournament. The schedule for the 2021 T20 World Cup in India will be announced in due course of time.
As per the originally scheduled 1st round schedule for Australia, Group A consisted of Sri Lanka, Ireland, Papua New Guinea and Oman, while Group B consisted of Bangladesh, Namibia, Netherlands and Scotland.
It has also been announced that a new qualification pathway will be run for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022, with many of the originally scheduled events for 2021 edition already postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic, it was a natural decision to forego the scheduled events and plan a new pathway program altogether.
ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said: “We now have absolute clarity on the future of ICC events enabling all of our Members to focus on the rescheduling of lost international and domestic cricket. We will now proceed as planned with the Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 in India and host the 2022 edition in Australia.”
