[ad_1]
Cricket has never faced a crisis like this. With much of the world still engulfed in the Covid-19 pandemic-induced blockages, administrators face an unprecedented situation. At some point in the near future, the sport will resume, but exactly how, when, and where, no one knows.
On Thursday, CEOs from the 12 member countries, along with the ICC administration, will meet via conference call to begin planning what a new landscape might look like. Thursday’s meeting is simply the starting point for a process that will remain a work in progress for the foreseeable future.
The ICC has said that the goal of this virtual meeting, and there really is only one item on the agenda, is to monitor the health of members and how they are dealing with the effects of no crickets, as well as to work collectively on contingency planning and classification of priorities between the resumption of international bilateral cricket, national cricket and world events.
Based on conversations with various boards, ESPNcricinfo lists some of the key issues that will be high on the list of priorities to be addressed on Thursday.
Men’s T20 World Cup
Scheduled for October-November this year, this is the largest event remaining in 2020 outside the IPL. Currently, the ICC remains optimistic about the event that will take place should Australia open its doors to host the tournament.
However, the tournament comprises 16 teams, which means that each will need the approval of their respective governments. What happens in case one of the participants is denied permission? What would be the quarantine process in individual countries? Will air travel fully resume to allow players to travel to Australia? These will be some of the questions that the committee of executive directors (CEC) will take note of and it is clearly a complex issue, as one of the officials who will participate in the call said.
According to an official, the fate of the T20 World Cup is the most important issue for a series of meetings outside of the largest. Those boards depend heavily on the ICC’s income distributions and an interruption at any event: As PCB President Ehsan Mani warned, it could have serious financial repercussions for some members. What the members might be looking to discuss is a rough idea of a timeline for when a final tournament decision needs to be made.
ODI Super League
This tournament, which will begin in 10 days, has already been affected. Three of the series scheduled as part of the ODI League, which the ICC established to provide more context for the 50-player cricket, were postponed indefinitely, and the Pakistan series in the Netherlands was the last to be eliminated. The ODI League serves as a pathway to the 10-team 2023 World Cup, scheduled for India. Along with India, the top seven ranked teams in the ODI League as of March 31, 2022 would have qualified directly for the 2023 World Cup, while the last five will have a second chance at qualification through a qualifier.
Questions that the CEC should consider include whether the league should be eliminated, or whether the number of series each team has to play is changed so that the original framework is not completely renewed. “The reason for the ODI League was to bring context and add an element of danger to the qualification for the 2023 World Cup,” said an official who will participate in Thursday’s call. “So, ‘is there any way to maintain the integrity of that league?’ is the question to be asked. “
An alternative is that, in the absence of a league, all of those series are held when they can and the roster for the 2023 World Cup is based on ranking. However, the official noted, countries like England would be at a disadvantage in such a scenario because they are likely to lose playing the ODI series this summer to accommodate several other events on the calendar.
“That is the part of the challenge: you must make decisions that take all these things into account, but there will be so many competing agendas or points of view,” said the official.
World Test Championship
The WTC is almost nine months old and the final is scheduled for July 2021. However, not all teams have played the same number of series. Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq recently suggested that the WTC should be put on hold instead of trying to play the original format where each team must play a total of six series. Not everyone agrees.
An executive director felt that with “almost 40%” of WTC already played, suspension was not the best option. “If we have cricket in July, even in bio-secure stadiums, behind closed doors, I don’t see the need to do it.” [suspending]. But it’s a big yes. “
The ICC is not expected to make a hasty decision on the WTC. A key determining factor will be what percentage of the WTC series is lost when the bilateral cricket resumes. If it’s not a big part, then the ICC will want all nine Championship countries to collectively resolve the windows on FTP.
“As in the UK, the government is very interested in restarting the sport behind closed doors because it believes it is good enough for the nation’s morale,” said the official. “It will start in different places at different times and we will do it again. That is when the real rescheduling and decision making around competitions like the WTC will begin.”
So what could be the result?
Don’t wait too long through binding decisions from this meeting. In any case, it is the ICC Board and not the executive directors’ committee that makes the final decisions.
“There will be a discussion on what the restart of cricket will look like, what competitions will have been lost and how we will try to see what the next stage of reprogramming is,” Warren Deutrom, executive director of Cricket Ireland, told ESPNcricinfo. “But of course reprogramming will only be a relatively relevant discussion when we know more about the point from which we can definitely reprogram.
“So I think it will be more about discussing the principles: what priorities should there be between bilateral cricket, the ICC events and the T20 national franchise leagues?”
Additional reports: Osman Samiuddin and Matt Roller
