The 2020 T20 World Cup has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced on Monday. The tournament was scheduled to be played in Australia between October 18 and November 15 this year. "The International Cricket Council (ICC) today confirmed the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in Australia 2020 has been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," ICC said in its statement. The ICC also revealed revised dates for their three upcoming global events in men's cricket, including the 2023 World Cup which is to be played in India.
The ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021 will be held October - November 2021 with the final on 14 November 2021, the statement said.
The ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022 will be held October - November 2022 with the final on 13 November 2022, it added.
The 50-over World Cup in 2023 will be held in India October - November 2023 with the final on 26 November 2023, it said.
The ICC did not mention where the T20 World Cups in 2021 and 2022 will be held.
The 2021 T20 World Cup was originally slated to be held in India.
The ICC said that it "agreed to bring clarity to the calendar and give the sport the best possible opportunity over the next three years to recover from the disruption caused by COVID-19."
"We have undertaken a comprehensive and complex contingency planning exercise and through this process, our number one priority has been to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in the sport," ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney was quoted as saying in the statement.
"The decision to postpone the ICC Men's T20 World Cup was taken after careful consideration of all of the options available to us and gives us the best possible opportunity of delivering two safe and successful T20 World Cups for fans around the world," he added.
"Our Members now have the clarity they need around event windows to enable them to reschedule lost bilateral and domestic cricket," Sawhney said.
"Moving the Men's Cricket World Cup to a later window is a critical element of this and gives us a better chance of maintaining the integrity of the qualification process. This additional time will be used to reschedule games that might be lost because of the pandemic ensuring qualification can be decided on the field of play," he said.