Hello Everyone,
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Sports is getting disturbed again with rising Corona cases whether it's Football like in recently concluded Euro Cup and Copa America cups or Cricket tournaments like England - Sri Lanka series or now the India - England series.
We might recall that the Sri Lankan coach Grant Flower and another support staff member had tested positive after returning from their tour to England.
Now, touring Indian team wicket keeper Rishabh Pant and another support staff member have tested positive bringing back those old memories of the Corona.
Although there are few more days for the Test matches to start between England and India, if there further positive cases, the series might be in uncertainty, but we all Cricket lovers hope that doesn't happen and we get to see some Cricket between these 2 teams.
Coming back to the T20 World Cup, yes, this was another tournament which didn't have any updates until yesterday after the ICC's decision to move it to UAE in June First week.
We now, have updates that the tournament will be held in UAE between October 17 to November 19 with few qualification matches between 8 teams which are not among the top 8 and there will be 4 teams selected from the qualification matches to have Super 12 in the T20 World Cup.
India and Pakistan in same group:
We all know the rivalry between India and Pakistan teams and we also know that, India never lost to Pakistan in the 50 overs matches in World Cups.
But, India have lost to Pakistan in T20 World cup in 2012 held in India itself and that was the only loss India has incurred in the hands of Pakistan.
Now, the schedule for this year's World cup shows that, India and Pakistan are in the same group with details of full schedule as below:
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As we can see, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan are in same group i.e. group B, which will also have 2 more teams from the 8 qualifying teams.
The other group has reigning 50 overs World cup winners England, Australia, South Africa and reigning T20 World Cup winners West Indies with 2 more teams to join them.
On paper, Group A looks more competitive with 4 best teams in England, Australia, South Africa and West Indies, but the other group is equally competitive as Afghanistan, the Fourth team in the group are no pushovers with some of the best batters and good allrounders along with quality bowlers including best spinner Rashid Khan.
So, the 12 teams playing in 2 groups will be competing against each other in each group and best 2 from each group will move to Semifinals to decide the Finalist and eventually the winners.
It's still a concern for the teams to move between venues (Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Duabi) as the scare of CoVid still haunting the teams and hopefully, there will not be any issues with that.
As for the 8 qualifying teams, the teams consists of regualr test playing nations Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and other teams like Ireland, Scotland, Namibia, Netherlands, Oman and Papua New Guinea to compete among themselves in 2 groups and top 2 will be moving to join the 8 tams mentioned above to complete the Super 12.
Why Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in this group?
Because of the low rankings these 2 have in T20's by the cut off date of March 20 2021 and that, the remaining 6 teams in qualifiers are from ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifier held in 2019 and remaining teams of Ireland, Scotland, Namibia, Netherlands, Oman and Papua New Guinea were the top 6 teams to qualify.
While we have exactly 3 months of time for the World Cup to begin in UAE, some of the players will be playing in UAE as part of the remainder of IPL which will take place before the World Cup and may get adjusted to the pitches in UAE and will have advantage over others.
The sports is slowly becoming normal inspite of Covid 19 cases still active in almost all the countries. As many are calling, we have to learn to live with Corona since the pandemic isn't looking like going out any soon.
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Thanks, wishing you nice Sunday.