ICC announced the groups for the upcoming T20 World Cup on July 16.
ICC on Friday (July 16) announced the pools for the upcoming T20 World Cup, slated to be held in UAE and Oman from October 17 to November 14.
As per the apex body, the groups of Super 12’s have been selected based on team rankings as of March 20.
The attention for all the cricket fans has immediately shifted to the biggest high-intensity game, India versus Pakistan, as both the teams are in Group 2. Also joining the two teams in the group are Afghanistan and India’s newest rivals, New Zealand, who have beaten the “Men in Blue” in the last two ICC knockouts ( 2019 World Cup semi-final and WTC final 2021).
In Group 1, we have the last edition's finalists in West Indies and England, joined by Australia and South Africa. Also adding to both the groups will be 2 more teams each based on the results of Round 1 of the tournament.
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With so much talk already going on around India vs Pakistan game, Indian pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who is currently in Sri Lanka for the limited-overs series, spoke on the anticipation of the clash and the team’s focus for the World Cup.
"Look, it is always exciting to play against Pakistan and it is always a pressure match, so of course it is going to be, you know, a high intensity match," Bhuvneshwar said at a virtual press conference.
"But to be honest we haven't really thought about it, how it is going to be, because we have got a lot of cricket left, we have got matches in Sri Lanka, of course Test matches in England and then IPL and then World Cup. But once of course the IPL gets over, we will start thinking about that (World Cup)," the pacer added.
The World Cup was originally scheduled to be played in India, but was later moved out to UAE and Oman considering the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases. With the rescheduled IPL in UAE now, the team management will closely look at fitness and performance of the players to select the final squad for the flagship event.
(With PTI inputs)