ICC confirms Afghanistan to be part of T20 World Cup despite political turbulence

 

ICC Chief Geoff Allardice confirmed the participation of Afghanistan in the T20 World Cup 2021.

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ICC Chief has said that despite the political disturbance in Afghanistan, the nation will take part in the upcoming T20 World Cup as usual. Due to the Taliban takeover, the future of cricket was in danger but Afghanistan continues to take part in World Cup. Geoff also talked about Australia’s decision to cancel a one-off test against Afghanistan citing the Taliban's decision for women to not play cricket. He said ICC will discuss how to approach bilateral cancellations, and how the World Test Championship is affected.

“Since the change of regime in Afghanistan happens and the Taliban took over the whole country in August this year. We are regularly in contact with the Cricket Board of Afghanistan,” ICC Chief said. “Our main goal is the development of cricket in Afghanistan. We will see what the future of cricket in Afghanistan is in this new Taliban regime. The ICC will consider it in the next meeting which most probably will happen at the end of the T20 World Cup 2021. Afghanistan is a member of ICC and their team is preparing for T20 World Cup. As far as their participation in T20 World Cup is concerned, they are participating as usual.

Geoff also confirmed that the DRS (Umpire Decision Review System) challenges would be kept to two per side per innings, a measure brought in last year because of the practical difficulty of arranging neutral umpires for every series.

ICC Chief also discussed the concern of events happening in UAE that can lead to many low score matches. Geoff dismissed this concern. The T20 World Cup was scheduled to happen in India but due to the Covid-19 situation, it is being shifted to UAE, some part of IPL is also shifted to UAE. Since, the IPL shift to UAE, average innings and scores have been dropped, which is leading the speculation about the nature of pitches in UAE.

“I don’t it’s a worry. The condition will vary from venue to venue, as you have seen in recent matches. It will be challenging for the event to adapt to the different conditions which have been presented. Some of the matches were high scoring, while some have been low scoring, varying from venue to venue. It is just going to add a different layer of complexity for the teams, but conditions are going to be the same for each day.”