CHENNAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has deferred until next month a decision on the T20 World Cup scheduled in Australia in October-November.
The ICC Board featuring heads of 12 Test-playing nations and six others including chairman Shashank Manohar decided at its meeting on Wednesday that the world body will continue to explore 'contingency plans'.
It was an important meeting from the BCCI's point of view, considering that it wants to hold the IPL later this year if the T20 World Cup is cancelled due to the global Covid-19 situation.
However, with the ICC Board putting on hold a decision, the BCCI's wait gets longer. President Sourav Ganguly represented BCCI in the meeting held over tele-conference.
"The ICC Board agreed to continue exploring a number of contingency plans regarding the future of the Men’s T20 World Cup 2020 and the Women’s World Cup 2021 until next month whilst planning for delivery of the events in the scheduled window is ongoing.
"The Board expressed its desire to continue to assess and evaluate the rapidly changing public health situation caused by COVID-19 working with key stakeholders including governments to explore how the events can be staged to protect the health and safety of everyone involved," said an ICC statement.
December deadline for tax issue
In another important announcement, the ICC said the BCCI has been given time until December to sort out the taxation issue regarding World Cups or other ICC events in India. The Indian government doesn't grant tax exemption to these competitions and the ICC deducts the tax amount from the BCCI's share of the world body's revenue. The BCCI is in the process of approaching the government for tax exemption. India is scheduled to host the 2021 T20 World Cup and 2023 50-over World Cup.
Mani to join probe
The ICC also announced that Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ehsan Mani and the world body's independent director Indra Nooyi will 'support' the probe into breach of confidentiality conducted by the ICC ethics officer.
The ICC thinks some of its Board decisions are leaked to the media and initiated the probe at its previous meeting on May 28. "The enquiry will be supported administratively by a sub-group of the Board comprising Independent Director Indra Nooyi and Chair of the F&CA Ehsan Mani," said the statement.