In April 2020, the confirmed that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament was still planned to go ahead as scheduled. However, the following month a senior ICC official said that it would be "too big a risk" to host the tournament in 2020, The ICC also stated that reports of postponing the tournament were inaccurate, with multiple contingency plans being looked at. A decision on the tournament was originally deferred until the ICC's meeting on 10 June 2020, with a further announcement scheduled to be made in July 2020. In June 2020, Earl Eddings, the chairman of Cricket Australia, said that it was "unlikely" and "unrealistic" that the tournament would take place in Australia as scheduled. Eddings also suggested that Australia could host the event in October 2021, and India stage the tournament a year later in 2022. The ICC also considered moving the tournament to be played around the next Women's ODI World Cup, which is currently scheduled to take place in New Zealand for February 2021. A month before the official postponement, Australian federal tourism minister Simon Birmingham announced that the Australian government expected that the country's borders would be closed to international travel until 2021.
Teams and qualification
As of 31 December 2018, the top nine ranked ICC Full Members, alongside hosts Australia, qualified directly for the 2021 tournament. Of those ten teams, the top eight ranked sides qualified for the Super 12s stage of the tournament. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh did not qualify for the Super 12s, instead being placed in the group stage of the competition. They were joined by the six teams who had qualified for the tournament via the 2019 ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier. Of the teams in the ICC T20I Championship, the United Arab Emirates and Nepal could only qualify through regional competitions. The top four teams from the group stage will then advance to the Super 12s. Papua New Guinea became the first team to qualify directly for the 2021 Men's ICC T20 World Cup, after they won Group A of the qualifier tournament, finishing above the Netherlands on net run rate. It was the first time that Papua New Guinea had qualified for a World Cup in any format. Ireland became the second team to qualify directly to the Men's T20 World Cup, after they won Group B of the qualifier tournament, also on net run rate. In the first qualifier match in the playoffs, the Netherlands qualified for the Men's T20 World Cup when they beat the United Arab Emirates by eight wickets, after the UAE only scored 80 runs in their innings. The second qualifier match saw Namibia advance to their first T20 World Cup after beating Oman by 54 runs. Scotland beat tournament hosts the United Arab Emirates in the third qualifier by 90 runs to secure their place in the T20 World Cup. The final qualifier match saw Oman become the last team to qualify for the Men's T20 World Cup, after they narrowly beat Hong Kong by 12 runs.
