England and India have reportedly agreed to play a Test in 2022 which will serve as the replacement for the abandoned Old Trafford match. (More Cricket News)
ESPNCricinfo reports that the match will happen in the summer of 2022, but it is yet to be confirmed whether the match will be a standalone game or part of the series which was started in August.
Sourav Ganguly, the president of BCCI, had ruled out the possibility of it being treated as a one-off game, and said that it should be treated as the series-deciding fifth match.
"We want the series to be completed as this will be our first series win (in England) since 2007," Ganguly had told. "The BCCI maintains that Test cricket is the ultimate format and we won't compromise it for anything.
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India were leading 2-1 when the match was called off after Virat Kohli & Co refused to take the field following positive COVID-19 cases among India's support staff, including head coach Ravi Shastri.
A forfeiture will allow the ECB to get insurance reimbursement of 40 million pounds that, it claims, would help offset its losses because of the cancellation.
Ganguly also added that India are "ready to play extra ODI and T20Is" to help England offset the financial losses.
If the ICC deems that the match was abandoned due to COVID-19, then India will officially win the series 2-1 as such a cancellation is considered an "acceptable non-compliance" under the World Test Championship rules.
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"There is precedence of series being cancelled because of COVID-19 in the past 18 months. The BCCI cancelled its home series against South Africa last year which cost us around 40 to 50 million pounds," the former captain had explained.
