(Reuters) – The International Cricket Council does not yet see the need to activate its backup plan for the Twenty20 World Cup and is sticking to hosting the event in India later this year despite the country experiencing a record COVID-19 surge recently.
India reported a record 115,736 new cases yesterday, a 13-fold increase in just over two months, as its coronavirus infections swelled to 12.8 million, making it the third worst hit country after the United States and Brazil.
The country is scheduled to host the Twenty20 World Cup in six months’ time and Geoff Allardice, the acting chief executive of the world governing body, feels there was enough time before they need to hit the panic button.
“We are certainly proceeding on the assumption that the event is going ahead as planned,” Allardice told reporters yesterday, adding that the ICC was learning from all ongoing cricket events across the globe.
“We do have backup plans that can be activated when the time is right. We’re not anywhere near that timeline yet. We’ve got a number of months to be able to see how the situation is and how cricket events are being run.”
