Cricket Australia boss casts doubt over ‘high risk’ T20 World Cup

The Twenty20 World Cup may not go ahead as the leader of the game in host nation Australia revealed the schedule for October and November is under a “very high risk”.

Australia has announced its schedule for its international season, including a full tour from India and an inaugural Test against Afghanistan, though October’s Twenty20 World Cup appears likely to be postponed.

Cricket Australia (CA) boss Kevin Roberts indicated as much in a video call, saying “obviously, we’ve been hopeful all along that it could be staged in October-November but you would have to say there is a very high risk about the prospect of that happening”.

He added: “In the event that that doesn’t happen, there are potential windows in the February-March period, October-November the following year.

“And there’s implications here for the (International Cricket Council) over a number of years. So there’s a lot of complexity for the ICC to deal with.”

It comes less than a day after the ICC rejected claims the tournament will be postponed, insisting a number of contingency plans are being considered in light of the impact of Covid-19.

Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie earlier this month cast doubt on it going ahead, believing the logistical hurdles would be too sizeable to overcome, but the ICC says it is investigating a number of possibilities.

A statement from the governing body said: “Reports of a postponement of the ICC T20 World Cup 2020 are inaccurate and planning for the event continues whilst a number of contingency plans are being explored in light of the rapidly changing public health situation caused by the Covid-19 virus.”