16 teams to play in next WT20
AGENCIES
AGENCIES, KOLKATA: With the World T20 2016 coming to a grand end and elimination of India from the tournament, the eyes of 1.3 billion people are on the next opportunity to win the next edition of World T20. Normally the World T20 tournament has been a bicentennial event from 2010 edition.
But the next tournament of World T20 will be surprisingly held in the year 2020 in Australia. ICC has decided to hold the important event in the ICC calendar at the interval of every 4 years, very similar to the ICC 50 over World Cup. The event will be hosted by Australia alone, though there were speculations of Australia and New Zealand co-hosting the event like the 1992 and the 2015 ICC World Cup.
The 2020 edition of the World T20 will be the 7th edition of the tournament and the first time, the event will be hosted by Australia. The first ever edition of the World T20 was hosted by South Africa in the year 2007.
Though ICC was criticised for restricting the number of teams to 10 in the ICC 50 over World Cup 2019, to be hosted by England, it has been more welcoming to the associates by allowing the 2020 T20 World cup to be played among 16 teams. For the first time, the tournament will also include a quarter-final stage.
Teams participating in the World T20 2020:
Australia, England, India, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan, West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Zimbabwe, UAE, Netherlands, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Ireland.
