T20 World Cup to (hopefully) go ahead as planned: Cricket Australia

52
Image Courtesy: CA/ICC

Not even a month ago, Australia hosted the 2020 ICC WOmen’s T20 World Cup, where they successfully defended the title against the Indian Women’s cricket team in the final. Whilst gearing up for the Men’s T20 World Cup again later this year- the Aussies have come up with a big hurdle- the Coronavirus pandemic. The global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has caused several major sports tournaments go get cancelled or postponed. However, Cricket Australia, the governing body of the sport in the country, is primarily hopeful on successfully conducting the T20 World Cup.

Image Courtesy: CA/ICC

It was only a couple of days ago when ICC themselves gave green signal on the Men’s T20WC. In a recent statement, ICC disclosed that there are no change of plans as of now, and the tournament will go ahead as planned.

“The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to take place from October 18 – November 15 2020 in seven venues across Australia. We are planning for the event to go ahead as scheduled,” the statement read.

There has been 438 confirmed Coronavirus cases in Australia in total, and five of the patients have died. Amidst the worrying situation in the country, the ongoing ODI series between Australia and New Zealand was cancelled after the hosts won the first match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Additionally, all further fixtures of cricket int the season was suspended.

However, there has been no update on the upcoming cricket world cup, and on the heels of ICC’s confirmation, Cricket Australia themselves have shown confidence to conduct the tournament as planned, as CA’s chief Kevin Roberts said in an interview on Tuesday.

“We’re really hoping that all forms of sport can be played again in a few weeks’ or a few months’ time. None of us are experts in this situation obviously, so our hope is that we’re back in very much normal circumstances come October and November when the men’s T20 World Cup is to be played,” Roberts told reporters.

“And at this stage we’re planning on November 15, to have a full house at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) to inspire the world through men’s cricket as the women’s cricketers did here just last week,” the CA chief added.

The seventh edition of the Men’s T20 World CUup will start with Sri Lanka vs Ireland and papua New Guinea vs Oman at the Kardinia Park stadium in Victoria on October 18th 2020.

Also read-

Sachin compared fight against Coronavirus to Test cricket in plea to public

Despite Coronavirus, here are the sports leagues still going on!