The tournament was due to take place in October and November, but has been moved back two years.

This means that the Men's T20 World Cup 2021, due to take place in India in October and November 2021, will go ahead as scheduled.

Meanwhile, the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2021, a 50-over tournament due to take place in February and March 2021, has been postponed to February and March 2022 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

This decision means 2022 is set to be a busy year in the women's cricket calendar, with a 50-over World Cup scheduled for February and March, a Women's T20 World Cup set to take place in South Africa, with dates to be confirmed, and women's cricket making its debut at the Commonwealth Games, scheduled to take place in Birmingham, England from July 28 to August 8. 

The decisions were taken by the IBC, the commercial arm of the ICC, following a "contingency planning exercise" which looked at the impact of coronavirus around the world.

"Over the last few months as we have considered how we return to staging global events, our number one priority has been to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in ICC events," said ICC acting chairman Imran Khwaja.

"The decisions the Board have taken today are in the best interests of the sport, our partners and importantly our fans.

"I’d like to thank our partners at the Board of Cricket Control in India, Cricket Australia and Cricket New Zealand as well as the Australian and New Zealand Governments for their continued support and commitment to a safe return to ICC events."

ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney added: "We now have absolute clarity on the future of ICC events enabling all of our members to focus on the rescheduling of lost international and domestic cricket. 

"We will now proceed as planned with the Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 in India and host the 2022 edition in Australia.

"We have taken the decision to move the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup to give players from every competing nation the best opportunity to be ready for the world’s biggest stage and there is still a global qualifier to complete to decide the final three teams.

"There has been no women’s international cricket played since the conclusion of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup earlier this year and due to the varying impact of COVID-19 globally that is likely to remain the situation for a number of the teams.

"Moving the event by 12 months gives all competing teams the chance to play a sufficient level of cricket ahead of both the qualification event and leading into a Cricket World Cup so the integrity of the tournament is maintained."

The format of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 will remain as it was for 2020 and all teams that qualified for that event will now participate in India in 2021. 

A new qualification process will be run for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022.

Meanwhile, the format of the postponed ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup will remain as it was for 2021. 

Five teams have already qualified for the event - hosts New Zealand, Australia, England, South Africa and India, and that will stand for 2022. 

The original global qualification event to determine the final three teams to contest the tournament was scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka in July 2020, but this was postponed due to coronavirus.

The qualification event has now been rescheduled to 2021.