New Delhi. (PTI) The much-awaited T20 World Cup tournament scheduled to be held in India is being shifted to UAE amid the health safety concerns by Covid-19, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly told PTI on Monday, ending all speculations related to the mega event in October – November.
“We have officially intimated the ICC that the T20 World Cup can be shifted to the United Arab Emirates. The details are being chalked out”, Ganguly said.
He further added, “ The decision was taken keeping health safety concerns of all stakeholders in mind”.
Talking about the start date of the tournament, he said “ We will be able to finalize itinerary details in some days. October 17 date hasn’t yet been finalized“.
The ICC had given BCCI four week window to decide and inform whether they could host the upcoming event considering the grave health situation in the country.
It was already a pre- assumption that India would find it difficult to host the tournament across nine cities with critical health emergency plunging the country into lockdown.
“The BCCI brass was always well aware that it won’t be practically feasible”, an ICC board member told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
Also, India is on the Red List of countries like England and Australia and traveling could be an issue if the rules are not relaxed.
It’s also understood that most of the member nations were comfortable playing IPL in the UAE after multiple cases of bubble breach happened during the postponed edition in India.
