Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly has confirmed Asia Cup 2020 has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The fate of the tournament was hanging in a balance due to the pandemic. Ganguly’s comments come days ahead of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) meeting scheduled to take place on July 09.

Ganguly provided the update during a live chat on Instagram with Vikrant Gupta.  “Asia Cup has been cancelled,” said the BCCI president. He also stated that it remains unclear when will the Indian team return to action post the COVID-19 crisis. Indian cricket team were last seen in action during the Test series against New Zealand in February this year.

“It’s difficult to say which will be India’s first international series. We’ve done our preparations but we can’t do much till we know the government rules. We are not in a hurry because the health of players is of the utmost importance. We are monitoring things monthly,” said Ganguly.

Asia Cup was scheduled to be held in September this year between top teams from Asia. UAE and Sri Lanka were being touted as the potential venues for the tournament. Pakistan were the official hosts for the tournament, but a neutral venue was to be selected after BCCI expressed reservations about playing in Pakistan. 

Several major cricket tournaments including the new season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic which has cast doubts on Indian team’s return to action as well. However, the BCCI is keen on hosting IPL 2020 later this year with games likely to be played behind closed doors.

Sri Lanka,  UAE and New Zealand have expressed interest in hosting IPL 2020 outside India but the BCCI has asserted that it will wait for the situation to get more clearer before taking a call on staging the tournament overseas. IPL 2020 will be played overseas only as a last resort if the coronavirus crisis is not under control in India by September, October.

-Agencies