On Friday, Cricket Australia conceded that there is “very high risk” of this year’s T20 World Cup being postponed, and the board is preparing themselves for a huge revenue loss because of that. Speaking to reporters, CA chief executive Kevin Roberts went on to acknowledge that the fate of the T20 World Cup seems in jeopardy because of the global travel restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roberts said, “We have been hopeful all along that it could be staged in October-November but you would have to say there’s a very high risk about the prospect of that happening.”
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The ICC has delayed the decision till June 10, saying it wants to continue exploring contingency plans for some more time. Roberts said Cricket Australia is staring at a revenue loss of around AUD 80 million. Even if the tournament goes ahead as per plan, it is likely to be held in empty stadiums because of the social distancing norms and CA is well aware of it.
The CA chief, however, is more confident in hosting the four-match Test series against India starting at Brisbane on December 3. According to the original schedule, the Test series is scheduled to be played at four venues – Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne – but Roberts said there is every possibility of a tweak in the fixtures.
Roberts further elaborated, “That (schedule) assumes that state borders are open to domestic travel. It may be that circumstances dictate that when the time comes maybe we can only use one or two venues, we really don’t know any of that yet. “There is a lot of variables based on whether we have four venues in four states or as little as one venue in one state.”
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He further added, “There’s endless scenarios and possibilities … we’re very optimistic that we will be able to stage the Indian men’s tour and the other inbound tours for the season. But we’re realistic enough to know they will look very different to a normal summer.”
