IPL's 'Cluster Caravan' format can be used for the ICC T20 World Cup 2021

Even though the ICC T20 World Cup is still a few months away, looking at the current Covid situation in India, staging a World Cup looks like a mammoth task. However, the BCCI are going ahead with the 14th edition of the IPL and have been very successful till now.

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To prevent the teams from excessive travelling, they’ve followed a twin city ‘Cluster Caravan’ where each team will play multiple matches at a venue before moving to the second city and if reports are to be believed, a similar format can be used in the T20 WC as well. 

"The way the IPL is managed, they only have two venues engaged at one time. You haven't got eight venues at one time," ICC's biosafety head Dave Musker told ESPNCricinfo.

"If the IPL works with this two-venue caravan model, then it is clearly a good starting point for us to understand how we may stage the men's T20 World Cup," he added.

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In order to examine the situation and preparations of the T20 WC, an ICC team will be visiting India on April 26. Meanwhile, the BCCI has shortlisted nine venues, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Dharamshala for the mega event.

Musker further reckoned that conducting a bilateral series is much easier than staging a multi-team event such as the T20 World Cup.

"The way I look at that is how many links you've got in the chain. If you have two teams, you've only got two links in the chain in one (biosafe) environment.

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"If you have, for example, eight teams in the IPL -- which is not our tournament but we have taken learnings from -- you have got a significant additional complexity.

"So every additional link, every team, every different venue, you are adding a new complexity. None of this is straightforward, but tournament cricket, or franchise leagues, are much more tricky than bilateral series," he said.

While Musker said that the decision on the T20 World Cup will be taken post the IPL, he was confident that there won't be any problems in organising the summit clash of the ICC World Test Championship in Southampton in June.

"We are still in the process of negotiating what the biosafety will look like (for the WTC), which will be dependent on what is the governmental policy in June.

"That requires a degree of prognostication because of all the (factors) around opening up a society, what happens with crowds at venues, and the pandemic situation in the UK. It is a dynamic situation. We have to be fleet of foot, have contingencies in place."

Also read Natarajan ruled out of the IPL

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