India will play Pakistan in their T20 World Cup opener on October 24 in Dubai.
The tournament will begin on October 14 onwards with the first round qualifying matches including teams that will try their best to make it to the main draw named the Super 12s. Group A consists of Ireland, Namibia, Sri Lanka, and the Netherlands; while Group B has the likes of Bangladesh, Oman, Papua New Guinea, and Scotland.
The Super 12s has two groups in Group 1 having Australia, England, South Africa, West Indies, and one qualifier each from the two qualifying groups. Group B will also have teams from qualifying groups going against India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and New Zealand.
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India will begin its campaign on October 24 facing arch-rivals Pakistan in Dubai and will then face, New Zealand on Oct 31st, Afghanistan on Nov 3rd, the qualifier from group B on Nov 5th, and the qualifier from group A on Nov 8th.
The BCCI announced a powerful squad comprising of regulars like Virat Kohli as the captain, and Rohit Sharma as the vice-captain. Also included in the team were Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami, Hardik Pandya, and Rahul Chahar.
The surprising part was the inclusion of R Ashwin, who had last played a T20I for India in 2017 against the West Indies, and the exclusion of Yuzvendra Chahal. Ishan Kishan was chosen as the second wicketkeeper along with Rishabh Pant, while Varun Chakravarthy was also picked for the ICC event.
Here is the India squad for T20 World Cup 2021:
Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akshar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami.
Reserve Players - Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar.