T20 World Cup - Everything you need to know about this year’s event

2021 T20 World Cup will be held in UAE later this year.

The wait for the T20 World Cup is over and the dates for the tournament are announced. After being postponed in 2020 and the venue being changed in 2021, the tournament is finally taking place in UAE and Oman with BCCI being the hosts.

Teams

A total of 16 teams will be competing in this year’s event. The top 10 ranked teams as of 2018, qualified directly while the other 6 teams have made it through the 2019 T20 World Cup Qualifier. The tournament is divided into two halves - First round and Super 12. The top 8 ranked teams are placed in the Super 12 while the rest of the 8 teams will be competing for the remaining 4 spots.

The first round will begin on 17th October and the tournament will conclude with the final on 14th November 2021.

While Bangladesh and Sri Lanka qualified directly for the T20 World Cup, they did not make it to the Super 12 and were placed in the group stage of the First round.

Here are the teams in the Group A of the First round -

Ireland

Namibia

Netherlands

Sri Lanka

These are the teams in Group B -

Bangladesh

Oman

Papua New Guinea

Scotland

After a total of 12 matches are played in this round, the top two teams from each group will progress to the Super 12 which begins on 24th October 2021.

The teams in the Super 12 are divided into two groups -

Group 1

England

Australia

South Africa

West Indies

Group 2

India

Pakistan

New Zealand

Afghanistan

Venues

The T20 World Cup 2021 will be played at 4 different venues across UAE and Oman. The Oman Cricket Academy Ground in Muscat is listed as the venue for some of the preliminary round matches.

The other three venues for the tournament are Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Sharjah Cricket Stadium, and Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

Where to watch the T20 World Cup matches in India?

The live telecast of the 2021 T20 World Cup will be available on the Start Sports network in India. The different channels of the network like Star Sports 1, Start Sport 2 HD, and others will telecast the matches in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.

Whereas online live streaming of the T20 World Cup will be available on Hotstar for Indian viewers.

India vs Pakistan rivalry

The archrivals, India and Pakistan are placed in Group 2 of the Super 12 and will clash on October 24th in Dubai.

The two teams will be meeting for a T20I match after 5 years. The 2016 T20 World Cup was the last time when India played Pakistan at the Eden Gardens.

Head-to-Head in T20 World Cups

India has never lost a match to Pakistan in a T20 World Cup maintaining a clean sheet of 5-0 so far. So, who will take out the title? According to Ajay Singh from Baazi King, “given their group placement and their recent form, India is a likely candidate to reach the finals. England and New Zealand are the biggest competitors for India in this tournament.”

(Disclaimer: This is a Brand content)