Organisers of the Twenty20 World Cup are refusing to give up hope of staging the event in Australia this year, even if international travel restrictions remain in place, exploring the idea of testing players and quarantining them in their home countries before flying them here for the 16-nation tournament.

Australia is scheduled to host the men’s edition of the 20-overs championship for the first time from October 18 to November 15. It follows on from the successful women’s World Cup, which reached its crescendo when a crowd of 86,174 attended the MCG last month for the final, won by Meg Lanning’s Australian team.

However, while Australia’s major football codes are workshopping how to resume their competitions behind closed doors in the winter, there remains great uncertainty about the international cricket summer despite it being more than six months away.

Already, Cricket Australia is seeking a $200 million line of credit from banks to cover itself in the event the four-Test series between Australia and India – worth $300m in revenue to the game here – falls victim to the coronavirus crisis.