Dubai: Indian men’s cricket team will take on South Africa on October 24 in their opening match of the 2020 T20 World Cup which will be played from October 18 to November 15 in Australia. The Virat Kohli-led side is placed in Group Two along with teams like England, South Africa, Afghanistan and two, yet to be confirmed, qualifying teams.
The Group One includes Pakistan, Australia, West Indies, New Zealand and two, yet to be confirmed, qualifying teams. The opening day of the men’s event will feature 2014 champions Sri Lanka in First Round action at Kardinia Park, Geelong on October 18, as they begin their campaign to progress to the Super 12 stage.
The tournament event will be held across seven Australian cities that will host a total of 45 matches. While the first semi-final will be held on the Sydney Cricket Ground, the second semi-final will be hosted by the Adelaide Oval. The final match, like in Women’s World T20, will take place in Melbourne.
For the first time, the women’s and men’s T20 World Cups will be held as standalone events in the same year and in the same country. On this, International Cricket Council (ICC) chief David Richardson said, Whenever we host an event in Australia we know we can guarantee the one billion cricket fans around the world a great show. The world’s best players, outstanding venues, noisy, passionate, knowledgeable fans, and exciting cricket- this is the perfect combination for a T20 World Cup and in 2020 we go one step further with two T20 World Cups in one year?
To hold two T20 World Cup finals at the world’s largest cricket stadium in front of 92,000 people with hundreds of millions more watching around the world is a particularly exciting prospect as we look to grow the fans around the world and make 2020 the year of cricket, he added.