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ICC Postpones T20 World Cup, Decks Cleared For Indian Premier League

The ICC on Monday postponed the T20 World Cup in Australia owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cricket bats sit on display next to a poster for the Mumbai Indians Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, owned by Reliance Industries, inside a sports store in Mumbai, India. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)
Cricket bats sit on display next to a poster for the Mumbai Indians Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, owned by Reliance Industries, inside a sports store in Mumbai, India. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

The ICC on Monday postponed the T20 World Cup in Australia owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, paving the way for the BCCI to organise the Indian Premier League during the October-November window.

"The International Cricket Council today confirmed the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in Australia 2020 has been postponed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic," the ICC said in a statement.

The T20 World Cup was scheduled Down Under from Oct. 18-Nov. 15 but Cricket Australia, in the month of May itself, had intimated the ICC that it would be near impossible to stage a closed-door event of this magnitude with quarantine arrangement of 16 international teams.

In addition to this, the 2023 fifty-over World Cup in India was pushed from March-April to the November window to give more time for the qualification process.

"At today's meeting of the IBC Board (the commercial subsidiary of the ICC), windows for the next three ICC men's events were also agreed 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."