The International Cricket Council (ICC) is unlikely to decide on the T20 World Cup in Australia until its annual board meeting in mid-July, leaving the Indian board waiting to know if it can try and stage the postponed Indian Premier League late this year.
ICC Board members met for a second time this month via video conference on Thursday, but the T20 World Cup, scheduled for October-November, was not taken up with only the timeline for the chairman’s election discussed.
“There were good discussions on the chair process and it may be finalised in the next week or so,” said a source.
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Colin Graves is the front-runner to succeed the outgoing Shashank Manohar. BCCI president Sourav Ganguly could contest if he is forced into a cooling-off period as per the board’s constitution. BCCI has filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking to amend the rule that will enable Ganguly to complete a full three-year term.
After its previous board meeting a fortnight ago, ICC said it would “continue exploring a number of contingency plans” over the T20 World Cup 2020 “whilst planning for delivery of the event in the scheduled window is ongoing.”
Cricket Australia has said pulling off the World Cup this year amid the pandemic is ‘unlikely’ and ‘unrealistic’. BCCI anxiously awaits a postponement so that it can try and utilise the window to stage IPL, a R4,000 crore-a-year property.
BCCI officials say even the broadcasters, who hold the rights for both T20 competitions, are keen that IPL finds a window this year.
