ICC closes door on Greens’ Cup dream
GUERNSEY’S top cricketers will not be heading to Finland this summer and with it have lost their final chance to potentially get to the T20 World Cup in Australia next year.
Yesterday the International Cricket Council announced that three ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub Regional Europe Qualifiers, all pathway tournaments to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia, have been cancelled due to Covid-19.
Guernsey had hope, but were not counting their chickens, as GCB chief executive Mark Latter explained.
‘We had always expected this decision.
‘It leaves us to get on with our domestic season and get on with trying to plan what international cricket we can given the situation.’
The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub Regional Europe B Qualifier was due to be hosted between 30 June and 5 July involving the hosts, Guernsey, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Sweden.
With no time left to rearrange the qualifier, Germany – the highest ranked of the eight at present – go through to the main Europe qualifier in October.
While ultimately the chances of reaching the World Cup down under were very slim, the closing of the door to Australia obviously is a disappointment.
‘We appreciate how hard the ICC and our hosts Finland have worked to get the game on and see qualification earned on the pitch. That it was not to be and in using the rankings we just miss out is obviously very disappointing for the team and board,’ added Latter.
‘This will make our resolve stronger to get some international cricket on this summer as border restrictions will allow and it is safe to do so, to show how good this current squad can be.’
The ICC statement said that after extensive consultation with both 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 three events.
‘The cancellation was as a result of over half of the countries still facing significant restrictions on free movement and extensive quarantine periods for returning members back into their home countries, as well as domestic restrictions in place preventing teams from selecting and preparing squads for the tournaments,’ 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 to logistically enable the Europe Qualifier currently scheduled for this October to take place, therefore providing no available opportunity to reschedule the events.
Italy, Germany, and Denmark will now qualify from those three groups without raising a bat and they will now join Jersey in that Europe Qualifier scheduled for Spain between 15 and 21 October 2021 with two qualifier spots up for grabs in the A or B global qualifiers.
Further afield, two other events in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 pathway have been postponed.
They are the Americas Qualifier, two steps away from Australia and due to be hosted in Canada between 17 and 23 July, and the Asia B Qualifier, which is also two steps away from Australia 2022 and was due to be hosted in Malaysia between 11 and 17 July
