Sri Lanka to face PNG, Ireland & Oman in 2020 ICC T20 World Cup

The global qualifier for the 2020 ICC T20 World Cup was completed yesterday (02) in UAE after 51 matches in 16 days, crowning Netherlands as the 2019 ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier champions for the 3rd time in the tournament’s history. 

What is this tournament?

ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019 is the final stage of the qualifying structure leading to the ICC T20 World Cup 2020 which will be held in Australia from 18th Oct-15 Nov. 

The pathway to the 2020 ICC T20 World Cup was begun on 26th February 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the commencement of the Southern Americas Sub-regional qualifiers. 12 sub-regional qualifiers and 5 regional qualifiers later, the number of teams were narrowed down to 8 (Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria, Canada, Bermuda, Singapore, PNG, Jersey) from the initial 61 participants. These teams were joined by Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland, UAE, Hong Kong and Oman to complete the 14-team line up in the event.

Ultimately, the top 6 countries out of these 14, secured qualification to ICC T20 World Cup 2020 along with the 10 automatic qualifiers. (AFG, AUS, BAN, ENG, IND, NZ, PAK, SA, SL, WI)

Wait, what happened to Zimbabwe? 

Zimbabwe lost the opportunity to play in this tournament as they were suspended by ICC for a brief period in the last few months. Zimbabwe’s spot was awarded to Nigeria.
Apart from the Full Member Zimbabwe, Nepal and USA are the other countries to miss the global qualifier out of the countries who currently have ODI status. 

What happened then? 

The 14-team event was a highly competitive one which led to some desperate scenarios later in the tournament with World Cup qualification and funding on the line.

Group Stages

Play-Off stage

Who qualified for the ICC T20 World Cup?

• Netherlands, PNG, Ireland, Namibia, Scotland, Oman 
• (PNG and Namibia qualified for a T20 World Cup for the first time)

So, Sri Lanka already qualified to the ICC T20 World Cup?

Yes. But they have to play the first round of the ICC T20 World Cup with above teams. The qualified 6 teams + Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will battle it out for 4 spots in the Super 12 round where they will be joined by the 8 automatic qualifiers.

In the first round Sri Lanka has been slotted with PNG, Ireland and Oman while Bangladesh is grouped with Netherlands, Scotland and Namibia. The top 2 teams from each group will make it to the Super 12s.

Sri Lanka’s first round fixtures

• Vs Ireland – 18 Oct at Geelong 
• Vs PNG – 20 Oct at Geelong 
• Vs Oman – 22 Oct at Geelong

It’s going to be a cake walk for Sri Lanka in the first round, right?

No!

All 3 countries have star players who can be deadly on their day. Two slipups in 2 days and you can be out of the tournament. The rest of the three countries have been in lots of do or die situations in ICC tournaments while Sri Lanka didn’t have to go through such situations recently. These countries will be encouraged by Sri Lanka’s recent performances in the Australia T20 series too.

Ireland possess a potent pace battery including the veteran Boyd Ranking while boasting the hitting ability of players like Paul Stirling and Kevin O’Brien. Newbies, PNG are one of the best fielding sides in the world. They played high quality cricket in the global qualifier and beat countries like Netherlands and Scotland. The conditions in Australia will be familiar to the PNG players as they play cricket tournaments in Australia too. Players like Norman Vanua, Tony Ura and skipper Asad Vala can take the game away from the opposition in a few overs. The 4th country in the group Oman is coached by Sri Lanka’s former skipper Duleep Mendis and has been impressive in the global qualifier. They do possess a few fast bowlers like Bilal Khan who can be a handful on Australian pitches.