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Xtra Time Web Desk: The International Cricket Council (ICC) acting CEO Geoff Allardice has confirmed the upcoming T20 World Cup in India will go as per plans. According to Mr Allardice, ICC is not thinking about

activating contingency plans at this stage. There were talks about back up plans with India currently experiencing a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Allardice confirmed the ICC had formulated a Plan B for the showpiece event. However, right now, it remains full steam ahead for the tournament to be played in India.

"We are certainly proceeding on the assumption that the event is going ahead as planned," Allardice said on Wednesday. “Yes, we have [back-up plans].

"But at this stage we haven't activated those plans, because we are preparing to go ahead with the event in India as scheduled.

"We're working with the BCCI and different elements of that event at the moment, but we do have back-up plans that can be activated when the time's right."

Allardice said that time is still a long way away, with the focus right now on the inaugural ICC World Test Championship final in June. "We're not anywhere near that timeline yet,” he said. “We've certainly got a number of months to be able to see how the situation is and how cricket events are being run.

“We've obviously got our World Test Championship final which is coming up in a couple of months too. [It's] one match and two teams, but it's still got its own challenges. We're proceeding with both as planned at this stage."

He also added that the ICC could not make vaccinations mandatory for players at the tournament given the varying levels of access to the vaccine globally.

"I think our medical committee and our board are recommending that participants should be vaccinated wherever possible, but I think the dynamic in each country is going to be different, both with the supply of vaccine or the availability of vaccine, and where sportspeople or international sportspeople might be in the queue to receive those vaccines," he said.

"The ICC wouldn't be able to influence anything like that at a national level, but our overall message has been, we recommend that participants coming to our events in the future are vaccinated wherever possible."