Australia’s World Cup in October will be officially called off this week
The decision has been brewing for months and finally a call will be made on Australia’s T20 World Cup scheduled for October. Meanwhile, the Indian Premier League is set to make a big announcement of its own.
Cricket
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Cricket’s World Cup is set to be officially postponed this week as Australia’s players are told to start preparing for a comeback battle against England.
Training for a return to action in September is the strongest indication yet that Aaron Finch’s troops will head to the UK for a limited overs tour in the biosecurity bubble, but elsewhere, the game remains in the grips of COVID-19.
Not only will the axe finally fall on Australia’s Twenty20 World Cup tournament this Friday as a result of the pandemic, the multimillion-dollar IPL that is due to fill that void in October may have to be shifted to the UAE or Sri Lanka because of the worsening situation in India.
There is a feeling Australia may now have to wait until 2022 to host the World Cup, but at least confirmation of the cancelling of this year’s event will allow administrators around the world to start mapping out how the game will relaunch over the coming months.
While the limited overs tour to the UK is still yet to be locked in, Australia’s quicks are building up their workloads for a return to play in September and players have been told to start preparing for another date against the Old Enemy – albeit a series of one-dayers and T20s, not Tests.
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The England Cricket Board are increasingly confident the series will happen.
The UK has proposed quarantine-free travel for Australia, and unless this week’s Test series between England and the West Indies goes pear shaped inside the bubble, it’s expected Australia could be on their way over by mid-to-late August.
Officially calling off the World Cup will in turn allow Indian officials to lock in details for its opportunistic IPL, which could be worth up to $800 million for cricket and could see Australian superstar Pat Cummins net the majority of his record $3.17 million deal.
If Cricket Australia signs off on giving players permission to attend the IPL, the ideal scenario would be that they could go straight from the England limited overs series to wherever the T20 league is held in the Middle East or Asia.
It would save players from potentially having to quarantine twice back in Australia and then in the country where the IPL will be held.
If India is still able to host the IPL, it’s understood it would limit matches to a select number of locked down venues, possibly in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi.
But in that scenario, players would have a difficult decision to make over whether they’re prepared to risk being in one of the worst-affected countries in the world.
The International Cricket Council board meeting on Friday won’t necessarily determine when the World Cup will be moved to.
Australia’s preference would be to host it in October 2021, but at the moment India is scheduled to host that year’s tournament, and officials are fearing the local bid will be pushed back two years.
Fast bowlers around the country are back to bowling outside and are building up loads for September in any case, with the local one-day cup to take place in that month as well.
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