T20 World Cup in India to go ahead as scheduled, have backup plans ready: ICC

ICC’s interim CEO Geoff Allardice on Wednesday said the body has backup plans in place for the T20 World Cup in India later this year but is currently not entertaining any thoughts of moving it out of the country despite a surge in COVID-19 cases here.

The tournament is scheduled to be held in October-November in India, which is reporting over one lakh daily cases for the past few days. Amid the COVID surge, the IPL is due to start on Friday in Chennai behind closed doors.

“We are certainly proceeding with the event as planned,” Allardice said during a virtual media



round-table.

“Plan B we have, but we haven’t activated those plans yet. We are working with the BCCI, we do have backup plans that can be activated if the time comes,” he added.

Allardice, ICC’s general manager – cricket, was recently made the interim CEO after Manu Sawhney was sent on “leave” after his conduct came under the scanner during an internal investigation by UK-based audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The 53-year-old Australian, who has played domestic cricket in his country, said the ICC is also in touch with other sports bodies to understand how they are managing in the COVID era.