ICC has 'Back-up plans' for T20I WC

|| CF DESK ||

Interim CEO of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Geoff Allardice said that the ICC has backup procedures in place for the T20 World Cup in India. The tournament is set to take place in October-November in India, which is reporting over one lakh Coronavirus cases a day.

"Yes, we have [back-up plans], but at this stage we haven't activated those plans, because we are preparing to go ahead with the event in India as scheduled,” Allardice said in an interaction with select media agencies on Wednesday.

"We're working with the BCCI and different elements of that event at the moment, but we do have back-up plans that can be activated when the time's right."

Allardice stated that there is still time until the ICC considers activating its backup plans, and that the ICC’s focus will be on the World Test Championship final, which will be held in Southampton from June 18 to 22.

"We're not anywhere near that timeline yet, we've certainly got a number of months to be able to see how the situation is and how cricket events are being run. We've obviously got our World Test Championship final which is coming up in a couple of months too. [It's] one match and two teams, but it's still got its own challenges. We're proceeding with both as planned at this stage." Allardice said.

The availability of many Covid-19 vaccines around the world provides a potential way for cricket to ease some of the biosecure procedures. On the other hand, he claimed that the ICC was unable to discuss mandatory player vaccines with governments around the world, even before an event like the T20 World Cup.

"I think our medical committee and our board are recommending that participants should be vaccinated wherever possible, but I think the dynamic in each country is going to be different, both with the supply of vaccine or the availability of vaccine, and where sportspeople or international sportspeople might be in the queue to receive those vaccines,”