The much delayed ICC (International Cricket Council) Men’s T20 World Cup, originally scheduled in Australia from 18th October to 15th November 2020, has been canceled due to the global COVID-19 situation and moved to India to replace the Champions Trophy to be held in 2021 and moved again to Oman and United Arab Emirates (UAE) in view of worsening pandemic situation in India, it finally started on 17th October 2021. This is just the official start , because during the first five days until October 22, only teams appear in the classification for the Super-12 that begins on October 23. The ICC has also earlier decided to merge the Champions Trophy (last played in 2018) with the T20 World Cup and this means that there will be two consecutive T20 World Cups this year and also in 2022. India plays their first match of the tournament against arch-rivals Pakistan. on October 24, 2021, amid some dissenting voices about Pakistan’s ongoing terror attacks in Indian Territories.
The ICC has increased the number of participating teams from 10 in the 2019 version to 16 this time, giving participatory status to 104 countries; this ICC expansion plan is seen in light of the popularization of this format around the world and makes a strong claim for this format of cricket to be included in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles from July 21 . This T20 format, the shortest in the game, is considered ideal for the Olympics schedule. Of the 16 teams in the ICC Men’s World Cup T20-2021, 8 teams qualified directly and the remaining 8 teams are divided into Group-A and Group-B, each group of 4 teams would play matches on a round-robin basis and the top two teams from each group will join the Super-12. All 16 teams have been selected based on their ICC rankings with the sole exception of Oman, who have earned their place by being one of the hosts. In the Group B doubleheader played on day one, Papua New Guinea defeated Oman and a listless Bangladesh had to succumb to an energetic Scotland, both games played in Muscat, Oman.
Here is the breakdown of the teams by stages, which also explains the format of the tournament:
Practices Group equipment
round 1: Group A Sri Lanka, Ireland, the Netherlands and Namibia
round 1: B Group Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Oman
great 12: Group 1 England, Australia, South Africa, Antilles, A1 and B2
great 12: Group 2 India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, A2 and B1
This leads to some confusion when reading the image at the top, taken from the ICC website, where the semi-finals are shown between A1 Vs B2 and A2 Vs B1, which actually refers to the top two teams in the Super- 12 from Group-1 and Group-2 respectively. In effect, there are four groups in the World Cup, the teams in each group play each other in round-robin and after the first stage of four emerging qualified teams, the Super-12 groups can also be considered as Group-A and B Group.
The typical format of the World Cup makes the gaps between the matches of your favorite teams stretch up to a week. For example, India, after playing Pakistan on October 24 in their first match, only plays their second match on October 31 against New Zealand. In total, India plays only five matches before the semi-final knockout stage, which is disappointing for cricket lovers and fans – some of the top competitive teams never play each other throughout the tournament. For this reason, I have always maintained the need for the ICC to change the format of the World Cups, whether it be the one-day Cup or the T20 Cup of all against all only by groups to do the entire Super-12. that it would be played in all against all, which would make the tournament tougher and more competitive. Of course, it would take more than a month, but some critics say that the current period of about a month is too long for the limited number of matches. The T20 World Cup has started more or less following the style and glamor indices of the Indian Premiere League (IPL), but without following the basic format of the competition. Of course, not as many as 14 times, but the 12 teams in the Super stage should be able to play each other at least once in a one-day format and twice in a T20 format.
However, the competition is going to be tough with each nation on the team trying to win the title for their fans, and the defending champions West Indies will definitely try to win it again apart from the tough ones like India, Australia, England. , New Zealand and South Africa, and the dark horses like the unpredictable Pakistan or Bangladesh or Afghanistan and the like. As numerous cases have shown, anything can happen in those three to four hour games, like the twists and turns in thriller/thriller movies. From the experience of IPL-2021 it emerges that the spinners may gain the upper hand thanks to the rather slow launches from the United Arab Emirates, particularly Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.