Cricket Australia boss Kevin Roberts
Cricket Australia boss Kevin Roberts on Thursday downplayed the prospect of going ahead with the ICC World T20 this year, explaining that the October-November schedule for the tournament is under very high risk owing to the coronavirus pandemic. He also suggested two other safe windows for the tournament.
“Obviously, we’ve been hopeful all along that it could be staged in October-November but you would have to say there is a very high risk about the prospect of that happening,” Roberts told reporters in a video call on Friday.
“In the event that doesn’t happen, there are potential windows in the February-March period, October-November the following year.
“And there are implications here for the ICC over a number of years. So there’s a lot of complexity for the ICC to deal with.”
The tournament is scheduled for October 18 to November 15 and also features in Cricket Australia's international home fixtures for 2020/21 summer which was announced on Thursday. But ICC will have the last say on whether this year's edition will go ahead.
On Thursday, ICC held a board meeting on the same but deferred decisions until its next meeting on June 10.
BCCI too will be keenly following the developments as World T2O postponement in 2020 will open up a prospect for staging the 13th season if the Indian Premier League. It was slated to begin from March 29 but was postponed twice owing to the pandemic.
The postponement and the subsequent IPL staging could have its effect on the Australian summer who have two T20 series with West Indies (Oct. 4-9) and India (Oct. 11-17). A total of 17 Aussie cricketers will be part of this year's IPL.
Australian players will have to take exemptions from their board to play the IPL and Roberts, speaking on the matter, said, “The question of the IPL will be addressed when a decision is made around the T20 World Cup, that’s the key influencing factor there."
