MUMBAI: The United Arab Emirates is on standby to host this year’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup should the escalating Covid cases in India make a switch necessary.
Sri Lanka’s Nation newspaper, quoting ICC sources, reports that while it is too early to make a call on a tournament that is due to get under way in just under six months, the ICC is ‘monitoring the situation closely’ and have been in regular dialogue with the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
An ICC delegation is currently in India, which last week proposed nine venues for the month-long tournament, due to start midway through October and conclude with a final at the world’s biggest cricket ground — the 130,000-capacity stadium in Ahmedabad where England played several matches over winter — on November 13.
India on Tuesday officially registered 323,144 new coronavirus cases in a day, taking the total number of infections to 17,636,307 since the pandemic broke out in January 2020. While the single-day infection count is slightly less than Monday’s count, India has registered more than 300,000 cases for the sixth day in a row. With 2,771 deaths, the official toll has gone up to 197,894.
