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Australia and India retained the rights to host the Men's T20 World Cup,[6] with the ICC announcing on 8 August that India will host the 2021 tournament, and Australia will host the 2022 tournament.[7] The ICC also confirmed that the 2021 Women's Cricket World Cup and the tournament's qualifier had each been postponed by one year due to the pandemic.[8][9] The qualifier itself would ultimately be cancelled midway through due to concerns about the rise of the Omicron variant in South Africa while the qualifier was being held in neighboring Zimbabwe, and instead of using the results from the games completed, Women's ODI rankings were used to qualify Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the West Indies for the finals, and Sri Lanka and Ireland for the next cycle of the ICC Women's Championship, a decision that controversially and detrimentally affected Thailand, an Associate team whose results in the qualifier had given them a fair chance of qualifying for the finals and/or the Women's Championship, but due to their lack of ranking, were instead left out of either.[10]
Due to concerns over the COVID-19 situation in India, in June 2021 the ICC announced that the 2021 Men's T20 World Cup would be re-located to sites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.[11][12] India remained the formal host nation of the tournament.[13]
Rankings
In May 2021, five teams dropped off the ICC Men's T20I Team Rankings rankings due to failing to play enough fixtures to qualify in the relevant period.[14]
In December 2020, the first match of South Africa vs England (under South Africa's ICC Men's Cricket World Cup Super League series) was initially postponed (later on cancelled) after two players of England Cricket Team tested positive for COVID-19 and also found breaching codes of bio-secure environment.[31]
In early February 2021, Australian men announced that they would postpone their upcoming tour of South Africa because of the unacceptable risk of contracting COVID-19 whilst on Tour, along with difficulty in repatriating any Tour party members were some to contract the disease.[32]
Asia
The 2020 Everest Premier League in Nepal was also postponed on 12 March.[33] On 13 March, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that the start of 2020 Indian Premier League will be postponed from 29 March to 15 April.[34] On 16 April, BCCI suspended the tournament indefinitely due to the pandemic and on 4 June BCCI announced that IPL will staged outside India.[35] On 13 March, BCCI cancelled the ODI matches between India and South Africa on 15 and 18 March, which were originally announced to be played without spectators.[36] On the same day, the two-match Test series between Sri Lanka and England, scheduled to be played in March 2020, was also postponed.[37] The remaining seven matches of the 2020 Road Safety World Series, a T20 tournament in India, were rescheduled to a later date.[38] It was earlier decided that the remaining seven matches of the tournament would be played behind the closed doors in DY Patil Stadium.[39]
On 9 July 2020, the 2020 Asia Cup was postponed until the following July,[53] with the 2020 Asia Cup Qualifier tournament cancelled.[54] On 25 August 2020, the ICC confirmed that the 2020 Malaysia Cricket World Cup Challenge League A tournament had been postponed again due to the pandemic.[55] The following month, it was confirmed that the 2020 edition of the Women's Asia Cup, scheduled to take place in September in Bangladesh,[56] had also been cancelled due to the pandemic.[57] On 28 September 2020, Bangladesh's planned tour to Sri Lanka was postponed for a second time, after both cricket boards could not agree on the quarantine requirements.[58]
In October 2020, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) confirmed that there would be no edition of the Bangladesh Premier League in 2020, due to the pandemic.[59] In January 2021, the Ireland cricket team were scheduled to play four ODIs against the UAE. However, a COVID-19 outbreak in the UAE team meant that the tour schedule was changed multiple times, resulting in only two of the four matches being played.[60]
In India, the 2020–21 Ranji Trophy tournament was cancelled due to the pandemic,[61] the first time since the tournament's inception in the 1934–35 season that the Ranji Trophy was not held.[62] On 5 May 2021, the 2021 Indian Premier League was suspended indefinitely, after a rise in COVID-19 cases within teams.[63][64] The remainder of the season was played in the UAE.[65][66]
In Pakistan, the 2021 Pakistan Super League was postponed from March–April to 1 June. They were hosted in United Arab Emirates due to growing cases of the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner surprisingly became Multan Sultans (They were below the table for the entire time. Until the tournament postponed and hosted again on 1 June.)
On 21 April 2020, the Dutch government banned all public events in the country through August, requiring the postponement of tours of the Netherlands by New Zealand, Pakistan and the West Indies. A quadrangular series to by played in Netherlands in June was also postponed.[74][75]
On 1 June 2020, the Professional Cricketers' Association confirmed that county cricketers will continue to take pay cuts of up to 20 per cent for the months of June and July.[80] On 10 June 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that the Scotland tri-series, also involving Nepal and Namibia has been postponed due to the pandemic.[81] Australia were supposed to tour Scotland for a solitary T20I. However, on 17 June 2020, Cricket Scotland confirmed that the match had been cancelled.[82]
In August 2020, South Africa women's planned tour to England was cancelled.[83] In November 2020, Ireland and Scotland women's planned tour to Spain was postponed, after Scotland withdrew.[84][85] In September 2020, the seventh edition of the Central Europe Cup in Prague was one of several annual associate member tournaments to be cancelled.[86][87]
In November 2020, the planned Cricket World Cup Super League fixtures between the Netherlands and England was postponed.[88] The series was originally scheduled to be played in May 2021, but it was moved to May 2022 due to the pandemic.[89]
The men's and women's Central American Cricket Championship were scheduled for April and May 2020 respectively. On 1 April, both tournaments were cancelled as a result of the pandemic.[93] The pandemic delayed the launch timelines for USA Cricket's planned domestic T20 leagues, with Minor League Cricket delayed to 2021,[94][95] and Major League Cricket delayed to 2023 due to both the pandemic and the need to construct cricket-specific facilities.[96]