Keeping in mind the current COVID-19 situation in many countries, FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have jointly decided that the upcoming qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 will be rescheduled to 2021, the AFC announced on its website.

The qualifiers were initially scheduled to take place during the international match windows in October and November 2020. With the aim of protecting the health and safety of all participants, FIFA and the AFC will continue working together to closely monitor the situation in the region and identify new dates for the respective qualifying matches. Further details on the new dates for the next round of qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup 2022 and the AFC Asian Cup 2023 will be announced in due course.

As per the previous revised schedule, the Blue Tigers were to host Asian champions Qatar in their home fixture on October 8, 2020, and then play Bangladesh on November 12 in an away match. Their last match would have seen India take on Afghanistan on November 17 at home. India have played five matches in group E of the qualifiers and collected three points so far.