Cricket News: ICC - India to host 2021 T20 WC as per schedule

The ICC has confirmed that the next year's T20 World Cup will be held in India as per original plans. The 16-team tournament is scheduled for October-November in 2021. Apart from Test-playing nations like Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies, the tournament will also feature its newest qualified member Papua New Guinea besides Namibia, Netherlands, Oman and Scotland. Back-to-back editions of the T20 World Cup were supposed to be held in Australia in 2020, and India in 2021. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 edition was postponed to 2022 with the 2021 edition staying in India as per the original schedule. In August, the ICC had confirmed that this year's T20 World Cup will be held in Australia in 2022. India had also hosted the previous T20 World Cup in 2016. It will be also interesting to see whether BCCI will have matches behind closed doors or they will have crowds coming in but it is a bit too early to predict.