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Preview ICC World Twenty20 2016

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By Lee Dolbear

  • 6th ICC World Twenty20 takes place in India
  • Home nation interest in England, Scotland & Ireland

INDIA – It’s time to take a quick look at the groups involved as the tournament got underway on March 8.

Britwatch Cricket:

Here we go again. The ICC World Twenty20 in India is the 6th time round for the short formats showcase event.
With India being the very warm favourites, there sure will be serious pressure for them to deliver on home soil.

The tournament got underway on Tuesday March 8th and runs through to the Final at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on April 3rd.

There’s two groups of teams. In Group 1 are England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies with one other team who qualifies to join them from Group B.
Group 2 confirmed teams are Pakistan, India, New Zealand and Australia. The Group A qualifying winners will join them.
So what chances for the home nations?

SCOTLAND have to qualify from Group B. No easy task as amongst them they will face Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.

With Afghanistan and Zimbabwe looking the strongest two sides in the group it would be hard to look beyond either of those but Scotland have turned a few heads in the past and all things being equal they may surprise and qualify to potentially join ENGLAND in Group 1. They did however lose their opening qualifying game against Afghanistan by 14 runs.

With IRELAND in Group A they will lock horns with Oman, The Netherlands and the vastly improved Bangladesh. We all know Ireland’s never say die team spirit and they are most certainly capable of qualifying top of this group, but with The Netherlands and Bangladesh in the mix too, it promises to be a very exciting Group to keep an eye on.

On to ENGLAND who have a very tough group opponents, they get underway a week today against the ever unpredictable West Indies.

England did win the trophy over in the West Indies in 2010, it was around about the time when an icelandic volcanic ash cloud prevented a lot of air travel. So can they erupt into winning the title in 2016? T20 to use a football terminology is “A funny old game” and with a very well balanced team, the barmy army being the twelth man in the sub continent. They will sure go very close.

With the tournament being over in India you can expect a majority of venues full to capacity, plenty of colour, spice humidity through the roof.

It promises to be an exciting month of style, flair and of course the odd freak result. The heat is on, the World Twenty20 is Go.