India to open U-19 World Cup campaign against Australia

India have been placed in Group D along with Australia, New Zealand and Nepal.

Dubai: India will take on Australia on January 28 at Mirpur in their opening match of the 2016 ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup to be held in Bangladesh from January 27 to February 14.

The tournament will be held across eight venues in four Bangladesh cities with 48 matches to be played and ICC to produce live broadcast coverage of 20 matches.

India, the winners of the 2000, 2008 and 2012 editions, have been placed in Group D along with Australia, New Zealand and Nepal.

Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Dhaka and Sylhet will share the 48 matches between them during the 19-day tournament, which will open with the match between defending champion South Africa and host Bangladesh at Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium (ZACS) in Chittagong.

The tournament will culminate with the final at the iconic Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur. All matches will be day fixtures and will start at 0930 local time. The Super League semi-finals and final will have reserve days, the ICC said today in a statement, announcing the schedule of the tournament.

For the first time in the history of this competition, ICC will produce live broadcast coverage of an unprecedented 20 matches. The matches which will be shown around the world by ICC broadcast partner, Star Sports and its licensees, include four from Chittagong, nine from Mirpur and seven from Fatullah.

According to the event format, the 16 sides have been equally divided into four groups of four each, with the top two from each group progressing to the Super League stage and the bottom two to feature in the Plate Championship.

Apart from the 10 Test playing countries, six Associate and Affiliate Member sides -- Afghanistan, Canada, Fiji, Namibia, Nepal and Scotland -- will also participate after winning the various regional qualifying events.