The BCCI has been given time till June 28 by the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s executive board to decide whether it can host the T20 World Cup in India because of the prevailing pandemic situation.

The UAE has already been earmarked as a back-up venue and the ICC has decided to step up preparations by including another venue as part of Plan B, which is likely to be Oman, for hosting the qualifiers.

“The ICC board has requested management focus its planning efforts for the ICC men’s T20 World Cup 2021 on the event being staged in the UAE with the possibility of including another venue in the Middle East. A final decision on the host country will be taken later this month. The Board also confirmed that the BCCI will remain the hosts of the event regardless of where the event is played,” the ICC said in a media release.

Tuesday’s virtual board meeting was attended by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah.

“The BCCI is likely to wait for a feedback from the government before taking a call. It doesn’t wish to put itself in a situation where there’s a sudden surge in the number of cases and everything goes haywire,” a source told The Telegraph.

The board also confirmed the schedule of ICC events from 2024-2031 with both the ICC men’s 50-over World Cup and T20 World Cup to be expanded and the men’s Champions Trophy to be re-introduced.

The 50-over World Cup will become a 14-team, 54-match event in 2027 and 2031, while the T20 World Cup will be expanded to a 20-team, 55-match event in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030. The board also approved that the ODI World Cups will revert to the Super Six format, which was last seen in the 2003 edition in South Africa.

An eight-team Champions Trophy will be hosted in 2025 and 2029. ICC World Test Championship finals will be hosted in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031.