Our Worst Fears Are Realized: ICC T20 World Cup 2020 Postponed

If you are a Test match fan, then perhaps you won’t be bothered too much by this news. If you are an ODI fan, then maybe the occurrence would perturb you or have a 50-50 impact, so to speak! Nevermind the pun. But if you are someone who loves T20 cricket and cannot imagine the gentleman’s game in any other form other than the template considered most entertaining then this won’t please you one bit.

Nevertheless, news that T20 World Cup 2020 has been postponed, as declared (or confirmed) by the ICC (the keepers of the game) may have a varying degree of impact on fans, depending upon their interest.

Yet the biggest conclusion one might draw from the breaking news in the cricketing world is that at the end of the day, a world cup tournament has been postponed. So, it’s not a tiny development at all. Isn’t it?

A lot was expected from the most-prized event of 2020, a year that got completely tumbled upside down thanks to a pandemic that none had any idea about when the organisers were busy drawing plans for the mother of all sporting battles.

Who could blame them? But along came the Coronavirus to hammer a damning blow to much of our world, suspending all sporting action with the only exception being Football that resumed almost a month back in Germany, and now England and West Indies participating in a closely-fought Test series.

That said, what are the greater details pertaining to the ICC T20 World Cup 2020 postponement?

In the words of the ICC Chief Executive, Mr. Manu Sawhney, “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.

“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.”

But the ICC Chief’s media statement didn’t just end there; it would also capture some insights about the cricketing action that is up ahead and is soon expected to begin for the larger interest of the communities and fans involved.

So Mr. Sawhney went on to add, ”

Our Members now have the clarity they need around event windows to enable them to reschedule lost bilateral and domestic cricket. 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.

“Throughout this process, we have worked closely with our key stakeholders including governments, Members, broadcasters, partners, and medical experts to enable us to reach a collective decision for the good of the game and our fans.”

That being said, while the ICC T20 World Cup 2020 stands postponed, there’s still a lot of hope that the IPL would take place this very year, after all, the announcement (made a day earlier) suggesting that in all likelihood, the series would be held the UAE. So it’s not all that disappointing, is it?