IPL 2021 Suspension Will Not Affect Hosting T20I World Cup 2021 In India, Final Decision To Be Taken In July: BCCI Official

A BCCI official has said that suspension of IPL 2021 will not affect hosting ICC T20I World Cup 2021 in India. After few players of multiple teams tested positive for Covid-19, BCCI postponed the IPL 2021 with immediate effect. However, according to a BCCI official, this will not affect hosting ICC T20I World Cup 2021 in India later this year. The ICC event is scheduled to be hosted in India during October-November 2021.

The rising cases of Covid-19 have affected India badly. About 3-4 lakh cases of Covid-19 are arriving on a daily basis. Active cases have crossed 34 lakh in India so far and the numbers are rising. Moreover, about 3 thousand people are also losing their lives daily due to Covid-19 in India. At present, the Covid-19 pandemic situation in the country is very sensitive.

BCCI Monitoring Covid-19 Situation In India

A BCCI official told ANI that BCCI is monitoring the situation and a final decision to host ICC T20I World Cup 2021 will be taken in July.

“We’re monitoring the situation and wait and watch is the best description at this stage. We probably wouldn’t go much beyond July as it’s a World Cup and they can’t be pulled off in a matter of weeks!” the official said.

The official also said that BCCI is confident that the situation will improve in the coming days and the T20I World Cup 2021 will be conducted in India as planned.

“We are confident that the situation will improve in the coming days and the World Cup would go ahead in India as planned. We have zeroed in on nine venues and preparations are on and considering that we have quite a few more venues across the country.

“We can prepare back up venues within the country itself so that we do not burden the health infrastructure for a particular state or another in the eventuality that the situation has not returned to normal by the time of the showpiece event,” the official further said.

Some news reports had earlier claimed that ICC is in talks with Emirates Cricket Board and BCCI for shifting ICC T20I World Cup 2021 to UAE from India. However, no official announcement has been made by ICC or BCCI in the matter so far.

ICC does not want to postpone ICC T20I World Cup 2021 in any case as the event has already been postponed once. ICC T20I World Cup was earlier planned to be held in Australia last year but was postponed due to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic.