CA, NZC in early talks to fill World Cup postponement void next year  

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CA, NZC in early talks to fill World Cup postponement void next year  

New Zealand Cricket CEO David White. © Sports Country

The International Cricket Council (ICC) last week announced the postponement of the 2021 Women’s World Cup until the next year keeping in mind the preparations of all the participating teams which has been hampered with the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the news came as a shock to the majority of the players, Australia may still head to New Zealand next February with the cricketing board of both the countries in early talks to fill that gap with a trans-Tasman limited-overs series, held in New Zealand.

If the series pans out, it will be the second time both the teams will contest each other in 2020-21 summer, with New Zealand already scheduled to tour Australia next month for three ODIs and three T20Is. The last time Australia visited New Zealand for limited-overs series was in early 2017.

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NZC CEO David White announced a busy home summer of cricket on Tuesday (August 11) for New Zealand’s men, featuring series against Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and West Indies. He also thanked the New Zealand Government agencies, stating they have been ‘tremendously supportive’ of the measures that would be required for international series to go ahead this summer, including quarantine.

Meanwhile, Australia skipper Meg Lanning said that a series with New Zealand could be logical in filling the gap created by the World Cup postponement. “With the window opening up in February and March next year, hopefully, we can get creative and put some series in there,” Lanning told Nine’s Wide World of Sports.

“New Zealand is the obvious choice, they’ve done very well with COVID and eradicating that. Hopefully, it means we can come up with some different options, as long as we can play some cricket, that’s the most important thing. We understand the situation is changing all the time and it’s a very serious situation around the world, but we’re just preparing to play as much as we can and hopefully there’s some cricket throughout the summer.”
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