The International Cricket Council on Monday postponed the T20 World Cup in Australia owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, a long-anticipated decision which paves the way for the BCCI to organise the IPL during the October-November window.
The ICC hasn't yet decided whether India and Australia will swap the 2021 and 2022 editions between them, both of which will be held in the October-November window.
"The International Cricket Council (ICC) today confirmed the ICC men's T20 World Cup in Australia 2020 has been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," ICC said in a statement.
The ICC T20 World Cup was scheduled Down Under from October 18-November 15 but Cricket Australia, in the month of May itself, had intimated ICC that it would be near impossible to stage a closed-door event of this magnitude which would also require quarantine arrangement for 16 international teams.
The ICC deliberated on unspecified contingency plans for over two months before coming up with Monday's decision.
Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said: "The decision to postpone the ICC Men's T20 World Cup was taken after careful consideration of all of the options available to us and gives us the best possible opportunity of delivering two safe and successful T20 World Cups for fans around the world."
As far as hosting of this edition is concerned, ICC's commercial wing will be monitoring various modalities before coming to a decision on whether India will host the 2021 edition or swap with Cricket Australia and host theirs in 2022.
"The ICC Business Corporation (IBC) Board agreed to continue to monitor the rapidly changing situation and assess all the information available in order to make a considered decision on future hosts to ensure the sport is able to stage safe and successful global events in 2021 and 2022," it stated.
The decision to announce the schedules of the next three World Cups will help the boards plan more bilateral engagements and earn revenue lost during the pandemic.
"Our Members now have the clarity they need around event windows to enable them to reschedule lost bilateral and domestic cricket," Sawhney stated.
There has been no formal announcement but there is a possibility that BCCI might shift the 13th edition of Indian Premier League to the United Arab Emirates taking India's COVID-19 case load into account. India has recorded over 11 lakh cases so far with the death toll breaching the 27,000 mark.
The other option is having a twin-city closed door bio-secure event, which was the first preference of at least one of the stakeholders.
The IPL, which has also been postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic, will likely start in the last week of September and end in the second week of November.
"We were waiting for the formal announcement. Now we can at least submit our plans to the government and wait for their necessary clearances. There is scheduling, logistics, operational aspects that needs to be taken care of," a BCCI official said.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had earlier expressed confidence that the year wouldn't pass without the glitzy event going ahead.
