Dubai: The International Cricket Council on Friday announced that the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifiers — pathway tournaments to the main event in Australia — have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finland was set to host their first ICC event with the Europe A and B qualifiers starting next month. The B Qualifier was due to be hosted between June 30 and July 5 involving the hosts, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Luxembourg and Sweden. The A qualifier was scheduled to start three days later with Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Israel, Italy, Malta, Norway, Spain all competing until July 13. Another event in Belgium has also been put on hold.
“After extensive consultation with hosts, participating members, the relevant governments, public health authorities and in line with the ICC’s comprehensive contingency planning of COVID-19 the only course of action was to cancel the events,” said the ICC.
With the three events taking place at the start of the pathway which are three steps away from the World Cup, all tournaments had to be completed by the end of July 2021 to logistically enable the Europe Qualifier currently scheduled for October 2021 to take place, therefore providing no available opportunity to reschedule the events.
Italy, Germany, and Denmark will now qualify from the Qualifiers A, B and C respectively determined by their position in the T20 rankings as of April 30, 2020. They will now join Jersey in the Europe Qualifier scheduled to take place in Spain between October 15 and 21 2021 with two qualifier spots up for grabs in the A or B global qualifiers.
