Northants bowler Glover's T20 World Cup debut delayed as tournament is postponed

The County's new signing was due to play for the Netherlands in the tournament in Australia in October and November, having starred in his nation's qualification at the end of last year.

It's also a blow for another member of the Northants team, as bowling coach Chris Liddle is also part of the Netherlands coaching set-up.

The ICC announced on Monday that this year's competition has been postponed for 12 months, with a statement on icc-cricket.com reading: "The International Cricket Council (ICC) today confirmed the ICC men's T20 World Cup in Australia 2020 has been postponed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic."

Glover had been looking forward to playing in the global tournament for Netherlands, but speaking a few hours ahead of the ICC announcement, he admitted he felt it might be best to delay things .

"If the tournament doesn't happen, then we will wait until next year and it is something I will be very excited to play in," said the South African-born pace man.

"I have wanted to play in a World Cup since I was a little kid, and Dutch cricket have been working extremely hard on things so it is disappointing.

"But as long as we can still play it next year or something then we can still work towards it."

The ICC statement added that windows for the next three ICC men's events - the 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cups, and the 2023 World Cup - had been agreed, with the latter moved to October to November 2023 to allow for a longer qualification period.

October-to-November windows were agreed for each of the men's T20 World Cups over the next two years as well as the 2023 World Cup in India, with the dates for the finals given as November 14 next year, November 13, 2022 and November 26, 2023 respectively.

The statement said that the windows were agreed to 'bring clarity to the calendar and give the sport the best possible opportunity over the next three years to recover from the disruption caused by Covid-19'.

It added: "The IBC Board (the commercial subsidiary of the ICC) agreed to continue to monitor the rapidly changing situation and assess all the information available in order to make a considered decision on future hosts to ensure the sport is able to stage safe and successful global events in 2021 and 2022."

ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney said: "We have undertaken a comprehensive and complex contingency planning exercise and through this process, our number one priority has been to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in the sport.

"The decision to postpone the ICC Men's T20 World Cup was taken after careful consideration of all of the options available to us and gives us the best possible opportunity of delivering two safe and successful T20 World Cups for fans around the world.

"Our members now have the clarity they need around event windows to enable them to reschedule lost bilateral and domestic cricket.

"Moving the men's Cricket World Cup to a later window is a critical element of this and gives us a better chance of maintaining the integrity of the qualification process.

"This additional time will be used to reschedule games that might be lost because of the pandemic ensuring qualification can be decided on the field of play."