2021 T20 World Cup: UAE, Sri Lanka among back-up venues for tournament

With COVID-19 situation evolving every day around the world, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been kept among the back-up venues for the 2021 T20 World Cup should India fail to curb the spread of the dreaded virus in the country. 

The ICC, last week, confirmed that India will be hosting the 2021 edition of the tournament as scheduled while the postponed 2020 T20 World Cup will be hosted by Australia in 2022. While locking on back-up venues has been a standard practice for every ICC Event, the situation around the virus makes it significant this time around. 

As per a report in ESPNcricinfo, Sri Lanka and UAE have been kept among the back-ups for the showpiece event in 2021 in case India fails to flatten the curve by then. India is currently the third-worst hit country in the world in terms of positive cases with over 2 million cases and 45,000 deaths. 

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Given the current situation, the BCCI was forced to relocate the much-talked-about Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 to the UAE and have placed just tentative plans to start the domestic season. 

The BCCI has maintained that it doesn’t want to host three big tournaments including 2023 IPL and World Cup back-to-back and came to a consensus about hosting the 2021 T20 World Cup in the ICC Board meeting. However, the recent outbreak of coronavirus in Australia played a part in Cricket Australia agreeing to host the T20 World Cup in 2022. 

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Meanwhile, IPL 2020 is set to be held in the UAE from September 19 with the final scheduled on November 10.