Pakistan, India placed in same group for T20 World Cup 2021
It is the first multi-team event since the global coronavirus pandemic broke out.
LAHORE (Web Desk) - More than two years after they faced off in the 2019 50-over World Cup, Pakistan and India will meet in a global tournament, again, this time in the Super 12s stage of the 2021 men s T20 World Cup, to be co-hosted by the UAE and Oman between October 17 and November 14.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the make-up of the groups - both for the first round and for the Super 12s stage - for the big-ticket tournament, which will be the first multi-team, global event organised by the ICC since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic early last year. The final of the World Test Championship, featuring India and New Zealand, was hosted in Southampton last month.
The first-round matches will be split between two groups, with the games played in UAE and Oman. Group A has Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands and Namibia, while Group B has Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Oman. The top-two teams from each group will qualify for the Super 12s, which will be played in the three UAE centres - Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.
Teams in the Super 12s have been pooled into two groups as well. India and Pakistan are in Group 2 alongside New Zealand and Afghanistan and two qualifiers - B1 and A2. Group 1 comprises defending champions West Indies along with England, Australia and South Africa and the other two qualifers - A1 and B2. The groups, the ICC confirmed, were selected on the basis of the team rankings as of March 20, 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," Geoff Allardice, the ICC s acting chief executive, said in a statement on Friday.
"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," he continued.
"There is no doubt we will witness some highly competitive cricket when the event gets underway in just three months," he added.
Source: cricinfo
