Chasing their second T20 World Cup title since 2007, and a major ICC title in 10 years, India will begin their hunt with a clash against Ireland on June 5 before taking on arch-rivals Pakistan on June 9 at Eisenhower Park in New York as the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday unveiled the schedule of the T20 World Cup to be jointly staged by the West Indies and the US from June 1 to 29.

India will play their three group stage matches in New York, with the third against the hosts US on June 12, before heading to Florida for their final group game against Canada on June 15.

India have been drawn into Group A, alongside Pakistan, Ireland, Canada and USA with their group stage matches being played entirely in the US. Group B consists of defending champions England, Australia, Scotland, Namibia and Oman, and their matches will be played entirely in the Caribbean.

In Group C, West Indies will meet New Zealand, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea and Uganda. In the final pool South Africa will meet Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Netherlands and Nepal. This is the only group to feature matches in both the US and West Indies.

A total of 55 games will be played across six venues in the West Indies (Kensington Oval, Barbados; Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Trinidad; Providence Stadium, Guyana; Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua; Darren Sammy Cricket Ground, St Lucia; Arnos Vale Stadium, St Vincent) and three venues in the USA (Eisenhower Park, New York; Lauderhill, Florida; and Grand Prairie, Texas). The semi-finals will be played on June 26 and 27 in Guyana and Trinidad, respectively before the grand final on June 29 in Barbados.

The T20 World Cup will be played in a completely new format that is significantly different from the ones that have been used till the last edition in 2022, with there being two group stages involving all the teams. The previous editions featured a qualifier tournament for lower-ranked sides before a Super 12 stage consisting of two groups of six.

The top two teams from each group will move to a Super Eight phase, where the remaining sides will be split into two groups of four. The top two in each group will then make their way to the semi-finals.  The Super Eight draw will be announced at the same time as the pool stage, with participating teams pre-assigned a group for this part of the competition, based on their initial seeding.

England are the defending champions, having beaten Pakistan in the 2022 T20 World Cup final in Melbourne. Canada, USA and Uganda will be making their first appearance at a men’s T20 World Cup.

20 teams to feature in 2024 T20 WC

The upcoming T20 World Cup has been expanded from 16 teams to 20, which meant that a lot of sides that fell off before they could face a big team get to play from this year.

As hosts, the West Indies and the USA take up the first two spots for 2024. The teams that finished in the top eight of the 2022 tournament – which means the teams that reached the semi-finals and the next two best sides in each group, gained an automatic qualification spot in the tournament.

Afghanistan and Bangladesh took the remaining two spots in the 12 seeds for the tournament on account of being the two best placed teams in the ICC rankings by the cut-off date of November 14, 2023, apart from those that have already qualified.

The rest of the eight spots were decided through continental/regional qualification tournaments in. Africa, Asia and Europe have qualification spots, with one spot for both the Americas and East-Asia Pacific regions.

Moving away from global qualifier

Another major shift in the new format is the tournament moving away from a global qualifier and instead putting an emphasis on regional qualification tournaments.

Africa, Asia and Europe were given two qualification spots, with one spot for both the Americas and East-Asia Pacific regions. The teams that have qualified through this route are Ireland, Canada, Namibia, Scotland, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Uganda, and Nepal.

A recap of India’s performance in 2022 T20 WC

India had a good tournament in 2022, until they were crushed to pieces by eventual champions England in the semi-finals. Their campaign started off with a thumping win against Pakistan at the MCG, thanks to another magical Virat Kohli special. The Men-in-Blue then beat the Netherlands but then fell to a five-wicket defeat to South Africa. India then beat Bangladesh by 5 runs via the DLS method and thus qualified for the semi-finals.

In the knockouts, they ran into a red-hot England who made a mockery of the 167-run target that they had set. Openers Alex Hales and Jos Buttler chased that target down in 16 overs and England won by 10 wickets, thus marking the end of the tournament for India.