Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cricket

[1] In July 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced that both the 2020 and 2021 editions of the Men's T20 World Cup had each been postponed by one year due to the pandemic.

[7] The ICC also confirmed that the 2021 Women's Cricket World Cup and the tournament's qualifier had each been postponed by one year due to the pandemic.

[10] Due to concerns over the COVID-19 situation in India, in June 2021 the ICC announced that the 2021 Men's T20 World Cup would be re-located to sites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.

[14] The 2020 ACA Africa T20 Cup was scheduled to take place in Kenya in March 2020, before it was postponed in line with the Kenyan government's 30-day ban on international gatherings.

[30] In December 2020, the first match of South Africa vs England (under South Africa's ICC Men's Cricket World Cup Super League series) was initially postponed (later on cancelled) after two players of England Cricket Team tested positive for COVID-19 and also found breaching codes of bio-secure environment.

[44][45] On 16 March 2020, the remaining play-offs in the 2020 Pakistan Super League were postponed due to a huge spike in the number of coronavirus cases around the country.

[49] On 20 April 2020, Sri Lanka and South Africa cricket boards confirmed that SA tour to the island nation has been postponed.

[54] On 25 August 2020, the ICC confirmed that the 2020 Malaysia Cricket World Cup Challenge League A tournament had been postponed again due to the pandemic.

[55] The following month, it was confirmed that the 2020 edition of the Women's Asia Cup, scheduled to take place in September in Bangladesh,[56] had also been cancelled due to the pandemic.

[57] On 28 September 2020, Bangladesh's planned tour to Sri Lanka was postponed for a second time, after both cricket boards could not agree on the quarantine requirements.

However, a COVID-19 outbreak in the UAE team meant that the tour schedule was changed multiple times, resulting in only two of the four matches being played.

On 11 March 2020, English teams Worcestershire and Surrey both cancelled their pre-season warm-up tours to the United Arab Emirates.

[67] The following day, Australia Women's tour to South Africa in March 2020 became the first major international series to be curtailed due to the pandemic.

[71][72][73] On 21 April 2020, the Dutch government banned all public events in the country through August, requiring the postponement of tours of the Netherlands by New Zealand, Pakistan and the West Indies.

[80] On 10 June 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that the Scotland tri-series, also involving Nepal and Namibia has been postponed due to the pandemic.

[84][85] In September 2020, the seventh edition of the Central Europe Cup in Prague was one of several annual associate member tournaments to be cancelled.

[105] The following day, Cricket Australia confirmed that the final round of matches in the 2019–20 Sheffield Shield season had been cancelled, with New South Wales being named as the winners of the tournament.

[106] New Zealand Cricket cancelled the final two rounds of matches in the 2019–20 Plunket Shield season,[107] with Wellington being named the winners of the tournament.

[111][112] On 25 September 2020, Cricket Australia confirmed that the one-off Test match against Afghanistan, and the limited-overs series against New Zealand had both been postponed due to the pandemic.