India remain hosts of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2021

The International Cricket Council on Friday (August 7) confirmed that India will retain their hosting rights for the Men’s T20 World Cup in 2021. Australia will host the marquee tournament in 2022.

In July this year, the ICC had postponed the 2020 Men’s T20 World Cup which was originally scheduled in October-November in Australia, owing to the global coronavirus pandemic. However, the apex body did not clarify whether the 2021 edition will be hosted by India – the original hosts or Australia – who cannot host the tournament this year. Both India and Australia will be hosting the T20 World Cup during the October-November window in their respective years.

It’s official!

India: 2021 ??
Australia: 2022 ??

CONFIRMED: The next edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will be held in India, while Australia will stage the tournament in 2022! pic.twitter.com/lcFzo4HK7N

— T20 World Cup (@T20WorldCup) August 7, 2020

Meanwhile, the ICC has also postponed the 2021 Women’s ODI World Cup to 2022. The 50-over tournament was scheduled in New Zealand between February 6 and March 7, 2021. This is the second ICC global event after the Men’s T20 World Cup to suffer the pandemic disruption.

“Over the last few months as we have considered how we return to staging global events, our number one priority has been to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in ICC events,” ICC Acting Chairman Imran Khwaja said.

“The decisions the Board have taken today are in the best interests of the sport, our partners and importantly our fans. I’d like to thank our partners at the BCCI, Cricket Australia and Cricket New Zealand as well as the Australian and New Zealand governments for their continued support and commitment to a safe return to ICC events.”

The IBC Board (the commercial subsidiary of the ICC) had listed potential windows for the three major events in July’s meeting: ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 (October – November 2021), ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 (October – November 2022) and ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 (October – November 2023).

Qualification process

All teams that qualified for the Men’s T20 World Cup in 2020 will participate in the 2021 edition in India. The format of the tournament will also be the same as it was in 2020. However, there will be a new qualification format for the 2022 edition in Australia.

There will be no changes to the format of the Women’s ODI World Cup in 2022, with five teams having already qualified for the tournament. The original set of qualifiers to determine the last three teams to play the World Cup were scheduled in Sri Lanka (July 2020). But the ICC postponed this event in lieu of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Women’s Qualifiers will now be held in 2021.