Image Courtesy-ICC
The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday announced the group for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 which will be played from October 17 to November 14, the tournament will be hosted by the BCCI in Oman and UAE.
The 2021 T20 World Cup title will be played between 12 teams. Before this, there will be a qualifying stage, which includes 8 teams. Qualifiers are divided into Group A and Group B, each with four teams.
The Super 12s have two groups, and teams in this are selected based on team rankings as of 20 March 2021, Group 1 consists of defending champions the West Indies pooled along with former champions England, Australia, and South Africa with two qualifiers from Round 1 joining them.
Group 2 will see former champions India and Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, and the other two qualifiers from Round 1.
“We are delighted to announce the groups for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021. There are some great match ups offered by the groups and it starts to bring the event to life for our fans as our first multi-team event since the onset of the global pandemic draws closer,” ICC acting CEO Geoff Allardice was quoted as saying in a release.
“Given the disruption caused by COVID-19, we selected the cutoff date as close as possible to the event to ensure we were able to include the maximum amount of cricket in the rankings which determine the groups. There is no doubt we will witness some highly competitive cricket when the event gets underway in just three months.
“With the announcement of groupings, our countdown for the ICC T20 World Cup kickstarts. There is nothing that separates the two groups as both are packed with sides that are highly competitive in the shortest format of the game,” BCCI Secretary Jay Shah said.
“It is good to get Oman in the frame of world cricket with the hosting of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. It will help a lot of young players take an interest in the game. We know it will be a world class event in this part of the world,” BCCI president Sourav Ganguly said.
Although the competition takes place in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, BCCI remains the official host because it was originally scheduled to be held in India.