Understanding The T20 World Cup Structure

Bet Central brings you a quick summary of new team groupings and fixtures at this year’s T20 World Cup in the UAE & Oman.

The 2021 T20 World Cup has officially begun in Oman and UAE, where the hosts, Oman, took on Papua New Guinea in a tournament opener on Sunday.

The ICC has come up with a slightly different look to the groupings of teams at the World Cup. This new structure gives a chance to the “smaller” nations to also feature in the biggest stage in world cricket and thereby further promote the game in those countries.

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Sixteen nations who have an ICC recognized T20I status will feature at the World Cup. Since the ICC has created only two groups that make up the tournament’s Super 12, that means of the sixteen teams, four will not be a part of the Super 12.

Hence, the ICC has structured the tournament in such a way that the top eight teams, according to the ICC T20I rankings, were given automatic qualification into the Super 12. This then leaves the bottom eight teams having to contest for the remaining four spots of the Super 12.

Those eight teams have been grouped into Group A and B. The groups are as follows,

Group A

Teams: Ireland, Namibia, Netherlands, Sri Lanka

The top two teams of Group A qualify for Super 12 inclusion.

Group B

Teams: Bangladesh, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Scotland

The top two teams of Group B qualify for Super 12 inclusion.

Teams in the Super 12

Group 1: England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, A1 and B2

Group 2: India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, A2 and B1

How Fixtures Are Setup

From the 17th of October to 22nd October, all twelve Group A and Group B matches will be played and four qualifying teams will go through to the next stage which will see Super 12 teams commence their World Cup campaign.

In that same period, simultaneously, all eight Super 12 teams will play two warm-up matches each.

The first official Super 12 encounter is on the 23rd of October and is a match between South Africa and Australia at Sheikh Zayed Stadium, in Abu Dhabi.