This year's Twenty20 World Cup will be shifted to the United Arab Emirates due to the COVID-19 situation in India, the country's cricket board sources told Reuters on Saturday.
The first round of the T20 World Cup is expected to be played in the UAE and Oman and will be contested between eight lower-ranked teams, four of whom will join the top eight sides for the Super 12 stage.
The T20 World Cup is likely to start on October 17 in UAE, with the final on November 14. The Indian cricket board will be informing the International Cricket Council (ICC) about its decision to shift the 16-nation tournament to the UAE in its next meeting.=
Three venues in UAE – Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Dubai – will host the T20 World Cup games, with Oman hosting the qualifiers.
“We have been approached by ICC and the chairman of Oman Cricket,” Madhu Jesrani, the Oman Cricket secretary had said earlier.
“The talks with BCCI have just started. The ICC asked us for certain things that they are looking at in a hosting venue and we have given them the details. We have told them that we are ready. We have two turf pitch grounds, including one with floodlights,” he said.
Oman is one of 16 participating nations at this year’s T20 World Cup.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the local organizers for the 16-team tournament, was forced to suspend the Indian Premier League in May as cases surged in the country.
The remaining matches of the world's richest T20 league were moved to the UAE, where it was also held last year, and will be completed ahead of the World Cup, which is scheduled to start from mid-October.
"Even if we go ahead and host the World Cup in the safest possible manner, some countries might ban travel to India in view of the third wave (of coronavirus infections). That makes the whole thing untenable," a board source, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters.
"A decision will be taken in the next couple of days and will be conveyed to the International Cricket Council."
Sourav Ganguly, the BCCI chief, and former India captain, told Reuters in a text message that a final decision had yet to be made. The ICC did not want to comment.
UAE, which has international standard cricket grounds in Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi, has been the preferred venue for both India and Pakistan to stage the final leg of their domestic T20 leagues this year.
Cricket website ESPNcricinfo.com reported that the World Cup will kick off from Oct. 17 in UAE.
The first round of the T20 World Cup is expected to be played in the UAE and Oman and will be contested between eight lower-ranked teams, four of whom will join the top eight sides for the Super 12 stage.
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