India and Pakistan have been drawn together in Super 12, or the second stage, of the men’s T20 World Cup as the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday, announced the groups for the tournament to be played from October 17 to November 14 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.
Round 1 will have eight teams, including automatic qualifiers Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, playing against the six teams who booked their spot through a qualifying event in 2019 in the UAE.
Ireland, the Netherlands and Namibia join Sri Lanka in Group A. Group B has Oman, PNG and Scotland are joined by Bangladesh.
Group 1 comprises defending champions West Indies pooled alongside 2010 champions England, Australia and South Africa along with two qualifiers from Round 1 joining them.
Group 2 comprises 2007 champions India, 2009 winners Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan and two qualifiers from Round 1.
Top two teams from both groups will progress to the Super 12 stage.
The two groups for Super 12 were created on the basis of team rankings as of 20 March 2021.
India enjoys a 5-0 superiority against Pakistan across all editions of the T20 World Cup.
“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,” said ICC’s acting CEO Geoff Allardice.
“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.”
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly was delighted upon Oman being part of the mega event.
“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.”
The tournament schedule will be announced later.
Groupings: Round 1
Group A: Sri Lanka, Ireland, the Netherlands and Namibia
Group B: Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Oman
Super 12s
Group 1: England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, A1 and B2
Group 2: India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, A2 and B1