[21] A decision on the tournament was originally deferred until the ICC's meeting on 10 June 2020,[22] with a further announcement scheduled to be made in July 2020.

The ICC also considered moving the tournament to be played around the next Women's Cricket World Cup, which was originally scheduled to take place in New Zealand for February 2021.

[28] In the same month, the ICC confirmed that Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates were being considered as back-up venues for the tournament.

[29] In April 2021, the ICC's CEO Geoff Allardice confirmed that back-up plans were still in place if India were unable to host the tournament due to the pandemic.

[36] It was the first time for both the UAE and Oman to be hosting a global ICC event, and also the first occasion that a cricket World Cup was held entirely outside of the Test-playing nations.

Pankaj Khimji, chairman of Oman Cricket, stated that "we were so close to being virtually wiped out [...] had this had happened over here in this area, I'd have said goodbye to the World Cup".

[38] As of 31 December 2018, the top nine ranked ICC Full Members, alongside hosts India, qualified directly for the 2021 tournament.

[39] Papua New Guinea were the first team to secure their position via the Qualifier, after they won Group A of the tournament, finishing above the Netherlands on net run rate.

[43] In the first match in the playoffs, the Netherlands qualified for the T20 World Cup when they beat the United Arab Emirates by eight wickets, after the UAE only scored 80 runs in their innings.

[45] Scotland beat tournament hosts the United Arab Emirates in the third qualifier by 90 runs to secure their place in the T20 World Cup.

[46] Oman became the final team to qualify for the T20 World Cup, when they beat Hong Kong by 12 runs in the last playoff match.

[49] On 6 October 2021, the Afghanistan team left Kabul, travelling to Doha, Qatar, for a training camp before the start of the tournament.

Originally, if Sri Lanka or Bangladesh qualified from their first round groups, they would have retained their respective seedings of A1 or B1 for the Super 12s.

[67] The ICC named all of the official broadcasters for the tournament on its website, including details on television coverage, digital content for in-match clips and highlights, and audio listings.

[70] Bangalore, Chennai, Dharamshala, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, and New Delhi were the venues along with Ahmedabad, hosting the final of the event.

[71] On 18 April 2021, it was announced that Pakistan would play two of their group matches in Delhi, while Mumbai and Kolkata would host the semi-finals.

[72] On 28 June 2021, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly confirmed that due to the COVID-19 situation in the country the board has officially communicated to the ICC about their decision to move the event from India to the UAE.