The International Cricket Council (ICC) has been forced to postpone several important qualifying tournaments for three premier competitions due to new Covid-19 strains developing in various countries of the world. The postponed qualifier events were scheduled to be held in the run-up to the 2022 T20 World Cup, Women's 2023 World Cup and U-19 men's Cricket World Cup 2022.
Chris Tetley, ICC's head of events, while confirming the news said that ICC had no other option but to postpone the tournament. "As part of the ICC's comprehensive contingency planning process we have decided to postpone three Men's T20 World Cup 2022 qualifying events and the Africa U19 Men's Cricket World Cup Division 2 due to COVID-19," he added.
Along with the threat of Covid-19, the costs of creating bio-bubble and looking after so many teams at once would have a significant logistical overhead on the ICC and thus postponement was the wise decision.
Now the Asia A Qualifier involving Bahrain, Kuwait, Maldives, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will be played between October 23 and 29, which was slated to be played between April 3-9.
Similarly, the Sub Regional Africa A and B will now be played between October 25 and 31. The top teams of the Sub Regional Qualifiers held in South Africa would travel to Nigeria, to take part in ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier which will be held between November 24 and 27. Kenya and Nigeria are the already qualified teams for the Africa Qualifiers.
Women's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier has been postponed by a month and will be played in October.
Due to the postponement of the U-19 Men’s CWC Asia Division 2 Qualifier, Oman and Singapore have been promoted to the U19 Men's CWC Asia Qualifier on the basis of their performances in the five previous editions of the event.