T20 World Cup 2021 to be held in UAE: Sourav Ganguly

BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has claimed that the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021 is going to be staged in the UAE. According to sources, Sourav Ganguly confirmed the ICC T20 World Cup is being moved to the UAE owing to COVID-19 issues in India. The country has been reporting several new cases of COVID-19 daily despite the second wave dying down significantly. 

The Indian Premier League is set to get underway on September 19

Earlier, ICC had given the Indian cricket board four weeks to decide if they can host the tournament in India considering the COVID-19 situation in the nation. However, now the council has decided to move to the T20 World Cup. Apart from the world cup, BCCI has also decided to conduct the second phase of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 in the UAE. IPL 2021 was eventually held in India, but then the competition had to be suspended in the first week of May. A few COVID-19 cases were reported in the bio-bubbles of four IPL teams.

Overall, 29 games were conducted in the 14th season of the Indian Premier League. Thus, with 31 games remaining, the BCCI will need a small window of around three weeks to complete the tournament. Just like 2020, the remaining IPL games will be spread across three venues. This includes Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It will then be followed by the T20 World Cup, which will also be hosted by the BCCI. BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla has stated that that the decision to move the T20 World Cup was taken during a conference call between the BCCI office-bearers on Monday. The emergence of the UAE as a safe destination to conduct cricketing events was further strengthened when the PCB successfully finished the remaining season of PSL 6.

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