International cricket in 2020

The 2020 international cricket season took place from May to September 2020.^[1]^[2] 15 Test matches, 49 One Day Internationals (ODIs) and 40 Twenty20 International (T20Is) were scheduled to be played during this period, as well as 8 Women's One Day Internationals (WODIs) and 9 Women's Twenty20 Internationals (WT20Is). Additionally, a number of other T20I/WT20I matches were also scheduled to be played in minor series involving associate nations. The season started with Australia leading the Test cricket rankings, England leading the ODI rankings and Australia leading the Twenty20 rankings.^[3]

The COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact on international cricket fixtures.^[4] Bangladesh's matches against Ireland were postponed on 21 March 2020.^[5] On 24 March 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that all ICC qualifying events scheduled to take place before 30 June 2020 had been postponed.^[6] On 9 April 2020, Australia's tour to Bangladesh was postponed.^[7] On 20 April 2020, South Africa's tour to Sri Lanka was also postponed.^[8] On 22 April 2020, the Dutch government announced that it had banned all events in the country, both sports and cultural, until 1 September 2020.^[9] Two days later, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed that no professional cricket would be played in England before 1 July 2020, with tours by the West Indies and India's women both being postponed.^[10] On 12 May 2020, the ICC confirmed that the 2020 Women's Cricket World Cup Qualifier, scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka, had also been postponed.^[11] The ICC announced that the qualifier had been moved back to 2021.^[12] Two days later, Cricket Scotland and Cricket Ireland confirmed the cancellation of summer fixtures, including New Zealand's tour against both sides and Pakistan's visit to Ireland.^[13]^[14]

June and July saw further disruption to international cricket due to the pandemic. The ICC confirmed that the Scotland Tri-Nation Series and the Uganda Cricket World Cup Challenge League B tournament had both been postponed.^[15] The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) confirmed that it had called off their tours to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.^[16] Scotland's one-off T20I match against Australia was cancelled,^[17] New Zealand's tour to Bangladesh to play two Test matches was postponed,^[18] and Bangladesh's tour to Sri Lanka to play three Test matches were all postponed.^[19] The latter was later rescheduled to be played in October 2020.^[20] On 30 June, Cricket Australia confirmed that their planned home series against Zimbabwe had also been postponed due to the virus.^[21] On 8 August 2020, Afghanistan's planned tour to Zimbabwe for five T20I matches was called off.^[22] Also in August 2020, the Netherlands tour to Zimbabwe was postponed,^[23] and India's tour to South Africa was cancelled due to a clash with the rescheduled 2020 Indian Premier League.^[24] Finally, the last scheduled series to be cancelled was the South Africa women's tour to England, which was due to take place in September 2020.^[25]

In June 2020, the ICC made several interim changes to the Playing Conditions due to the pandemic. A substitute could be used for any player showing symptoms of COVID-19, but only in a Test match.^[26] Players were banned from using saliva to shine the ball, with five penalty runs being awarded to the opposition for repeated transgressions.^[27] The requirement to use neutral match officials was temporarily lifted, along with an increase to the number of DRS reviews a team can use, due to having less experienced umpires in a match.^[28]

International men's cricket started with the first Test between England and the West Indies on 8 July 2020, with the West Indies winning by four wickets.^[29] New Zealand's tour of the West Indies, also scheduled to start on 8 July 2020, was postponed after it clashed with the rescheduling of the West Indies tour of England.^[30] South Africa's tour of the West Indies was also postponed due to the rescheduling of the England-West Indies series.^[31] Ireland's tour of England, originally scheduled in September, was brought forward to 30 July 2020, after the ECB gave the go ahead for the series.^[32] The fixture was also the first match in the 2020–2023 ICC Cricket World Cup Super League tournament, with England beating Ireland by six wickets.^[33] The ICC began the use of technology to monitor front-foot no-balls for all matches in the World Cup Super League.^[34] The ICC also started to trial the technology for the first time in a Test match, during Pakistan's Test series against England.^[35] Australia's tour to England, originally scheduled to take place in July, was moved back to September, following the rearranged series between England and Ireland.^[36] The only women's international cricket to take place was a five-match WT20I series between England and the West Indies. England Women won all of the matches, the first time they had won a bilateral series 5–0.^[37]

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Men's international tours
Start date	Home team	Away team	Results [Matches]
Start date	Home team	Away team	Test	ODI	T20I
14 May 2020^{[n 1]}	Ireland	Bangladesh	—	[3]	[4]
10 June 2020^{[n 1]}	Scotland	New Zealand	—	[1]	[1]
11 June 2020^{[n 1]}	Bangladesh	Australia	[2]	—	—
15 June 2020^{[n 1]}	Netherlands	New Zealand	—	—	[1]
19 June 2020^{[n 1]}	Ireland	New Zealand	—	[3]	[3]
29 June 2020^{[n 1]}	Scotland	Australia	—	—	[1]
June 2020^{[n 1]}	Sri Lanka	South Africa	—	[3]	[3]
4 July 2020^{[n 1]}	Netherlands	Pakistan	—	[3]	—
8 July 2020^{[n 2]}	England	West Indies	2–1 [3]	—	—
8 July 2020^{[n 3]}	West Indies	New Zealand	—	[3]	[3]
12 July 2020^{[n 1]}	Ireland	Pakistan	—	—	[2]
23 July 2020^{[n 3]}	West Indies	South Africa	[2]	—	[5]
30 July 2020	England	Ireland	—	2–1 [3]	—
July 2020^{[n 1]}	Netherlands	West Indies	—	[3]	—
July 2020^{[n 1]}	Zimbabwe	Afghanistan	—	—	[5]
5 August 2020	England	Pakistan	1–0 [3]	—	1–1 [3]
9 August 2020^{[n 1]}	Australia	Zimbabwe	—	[3]	—
August 2020^{[n 1]}	Bangladesh	New Zealand	[2]	—	—
August 2020^{[n 4]}	South Africa	India	—	—	[3]
August 2020^{[n 1]}	Zimbabwe	India	—	[3]	—
August 2020^{[n 1]}	Sri Lanka	India	—	[3]	[3]
4 September 2020^{[n 5]}	England	Australia	—	1–2 [3]	2–1 [3]
9 September 2020^{[n 1]}	Zimbabwe	Netherlands	—	[3]	—
Men's international tournaments
Start date	Tournament				Winners
9 June 2020^{[n 6]}	2020 Papua New Guinea Tri-Nation Series				—
18 June 2020^{[n 6]}	2020 Netherlands Quadrangular Series				—
4 July 2020^{[n 6]}	2020 Scotland Tri-Nation Series				—
3 August 2020^{[n 7]}	2020 Uganda Cricket World Cup Challenge League B				—

Women's international tours
Start date	Home team	Away team	Results [Matches]
Start date	Home team	Away team	WTest	WODI	WT20I
25 June 2020^{[n 1]}	England	India	—	[4]	[2]
1 September 2020^{[n 1]}	England	South Africa	—	[4]	[2]
21 September 2020	England	West Indies	—	—	5–0 [5]

ICC Men's Test Team Rankings 1 May 2020^[38]^[39]
Rank	Team	Matches	Points	Rating
1	Australia	26	3,028	116
2	New Zealand	21	2,406	115
3	India	27	3,085	114
4	England	33	3,466	105
5	Sri Lanka	27	2,454	91
6	South Africa	23	2,076	90
7	Pakistan	16	1,372	86
8	West Indies	18	1,422	79
9	Afghanistan	3	170	57
10	Bangladesh	17	939	55
11	Zimbabwe	8	144	18
12	Ireland	0	0	0

ICC Men's ODI Team Rankings 1 May 2020^[38]^[40]
Rank	Team	Matches	Points	Rating
1	England	38	4,820	127
2	India	49	5,819	119
3	New Zealand	32	3,716	116
4	South Africa	31	3,345	108
5	Australia	33	3,518	107
6	Pakistan	32	3,254	102
7	Bangladesh	34	2,989	88
8	Sri Lanka	39	3,297	85
9	West Indies	43	3,285	76
10	Afghanistan	28	1,549	55
11	Ireland	21	1,039	49
12	Netherlands	5	222	44
13	Oman	12	479	40
14	Zimbabwe	24	935	39
15	Scotland	16	419	26
16	Nepal	9	161	18
Only the top 16 teams are shown

ICC Men's T20I Team Rankings 1 May 2020^[38]^[41]
Rank	Team	Matches	Points	Rating
1	Australia	19	5,285	278
2	England	17	4,564	268
3	India	35	9,319	266
4	Pakistan	21	5,470	260
5	South Africa	17	4,380	258
6	New Zealand	23	5,565	242
7	Sri Lanka	23	5,293	230
8	Bangladesh	20	4,583	229
9	West Indies	24	5,499	229
10	Afghanistan	17	3,882	228
11	Zimbabwe	18	3,442	191
12	Ireland	29	5,513	190
13	United Arab Emirates	23	4,288	186
14	Scotland	17	3,096	182
15	Nepal	23	4,148	180
16	Papua New Guinea	21	3,769	179
Only the top 16 teams are shown

2020–2023 ICC Cricket World Cup Super League – ODI series
No.	Date	Home captain	Away captain	Venue	Result
1st ODI	14 May			Stormont, Belfast
2nd ODI	16 May			Stormont, Belfast
3rd ODI	19 May			Stormont, Belfast
T20I series
No.	Date	Home captain	Away captain	Venue	Result
[1st T20I]	22 May			The Oval, London
[2nd T20I]	24 May			County Ground, Chelmsford
[3rd T20I]	27 May			County Ground, Bristol
[4th T20I]	29 May			Edgbaston, Birmingham

2019–2023 ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 – Tri-series
No.	Date	Team 1	Captain 1	Team 2	Captain 2	Venue	Result
[1st ODI]	9 June					Amini Park, Port Moresby
[2nd ODI]	10 June					Amini Park, Port Moresby
[3rd ODI]	12 June					Amini Park, Port Moresby
[4th ODI]	13 June					Amini Park, Port Moresby
[5th ODI]	15 June					Amini Park, Port Moresby
[6th ODI]	16 June					Amini Park, Port Moresby

Only T20I
No.	Date	Home captain	Away captain	Venue	Result
Only T20I	10 June			The Grange Club, Edinburgh
Only ODI
No.	Date	Home captain	Away captain	Venue	Result
Only ODI	12 June			The Grange Club, Edinburgh

2019–2021 ICC World Test Championship – Test series
No.	Date	Home captain	Away captain	Venue	Result
1st Test	11–15 June			Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chittagong
2nd Test	19–23 June			Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, Dhaka

Season overview

Rankings

On-going tournaments

May

Bangladesh in Ireland and England

June

2020 Papua New Guinea Tri-Nation Series

New Zealand in Scotland

Australia in Bangladesh

New Zealand in the Netherlands

2020 Netherlands Quadrangular Series

New Zealand in Ireland

India women in England

South Africa in Sri Lanka

Australia in Scotland

July

Pakistan in the Netherlands

2020 Scotland Tri-Nation Series

West Indies in England

New Zealand in West Indies

Pakistan in Ireland

South Africa in West Indies and United States

West Indies in Netherlands

Ireland in England

Afghanistan in Zimbabwe

August

2020 Uganda Cricket World Cup Challenge League B

Pakistan in England

Zimbabwe in Australia

New Zealand in Bangladesh

India in South Africa

India in Zimbabwe

India in Sri Lanka

September

South Africa women in England

Australia in England

Netherlands in Zimbabwe

West Indies women in England

See also

Notes

References