Coronavirus pandemic: ICC confirms T20 World Cup on schedule for October 2020

The Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted everything and has brought the world to a standstill. All major sporting events across the world have been suspended at the moment. The COVID-19 has proceeded to put the entire world into a lockdown. Schools, colleges, malls, theatres, gyms, offices have been shut down. Cricket has been massively affected by the Coronavirus pandemic as all the international as well as domestic fixtures have been called off.

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ICC to conduct Men's T20 World Cup as scheduled

Despite a lot of tension prevalent at the moment, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is positive that this year’s Men’s T20 World Cup will go ahead as scheduled. In an official statement, the ICC said that in response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the ICC T20 World Cup 2020 Local Organising Committee is monitoring the situation closely with relevant authorities and will continue to do so. The statement further read that the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to take place from October 18 to November 15 in seven venues across Australia and the ICC was planning for the event to go ahead as scheduled.

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The 2020 edition of the Men’s T20 World Cup is set to commence from October 18, with a six-day pre-qualifying stage, out of which four teams will qualify for the Super-12, starting October 24.

India’s ODI series against South Africa was cancelled midway last week. BCCI and Cricket South Africa decided to reschedule the India vs South Africa series due to the coronavirus outbreak. England also called off their two-match Test series in Sri Lanka before Australia called off their ODI and T20I series against New Zealand.

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Even the IPL 2020 was postponed to April 15. PSL 2020, which had reached its business end, was also called off with immediate effect due to an alarming rise in coronavirus patients in the country.

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IMAGE COURTESY: ICC TWITTER