The IPL 2021 will run in the UAE till October 10 while T20 World Cup’s qualifying round will begin on October 17.
On Tuesday, ICC officially announced that the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The tournament is now set to begin on October 17 with the final to be played on November 14. This comes after BCCI on Monday revealed that they are planning to shift the T20 World Cup out of India. With this one move, BCCI solved a couple of key problems which they had initially around the second phase of the IPL 2021 and T20 World Cup.
Firstly, there was a major issue of the international sides deciding against giving out NOCs to its players for the IPL ahead of the T20 World Cup. BCCI was aware that the league will not have the same flavor if the top international stars don’t turn up. However, with the IPL 2021 said to end by October 10 and the main round of the T20 World Cup to begin in the third week of October or later, players will have a little break before they turn up for their countries.
On top of that, the BCCI decided to add the Oman Cricket Academy Stadium in Muscat as one of the venues. Now, ICC has a rule which states that any venue hosting a world event game must be handed over to the apex council at least 10-12 days in advance. The qualifying round of the T20 World Cup will see two groups of four teams each, playing against each other.
The main round of the T20 World Cup to be completely played in UAE
It has been reported that one of these groups will play its matches in Oman, while the other will play its matches in one of the venues in the UAE. This sort of implies that IPL might use only two of the three venues in the UAE for the last week while handing over the other venue to the ICC. The main round of the T20 World Cup which will see 12 teams being split into two groups, will be played in three UAE venues, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah.
Another problem which the BCCI solved was the regulations of the Lodha Commission, which states that the Indian team players need to have a two-week break between two assignments. With BCCI trying to finish the leftover 31 matches of the IPL within October 10 and India playing in the T20 World Cup’s main round directly, the players will get a break before they represent India.
