India, Australia and Pakistan fielded together in Champions Trophy

Defending champion Australia alongwith arch-rivals India, Pakistan and West Indies have been fielded together for the September’s ICC Champions Trophy scheduled to be held in Pakistan later this year.

The International Cricket Council finalised the groups on Thursday for this biennial event. The eight teams are divided into two groups of four with a round-robin format.

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The two top teams in each group after the round robin stage will make it to the semis. The tournament schedule and venues will be announced later an ICC press statement said.

Group A comprises defending champion and tournament’s top seed Australia along with India, Pakistan and the West Indies while Group B is made up of the winner of the inaugural event South Africa alongwith New Zealand, Sri Lanka and England.

The groupings were finalised on the basis of teams’ rankings in the LG ICC ODI Championship table as on 12 March, which was the cut-off date for the determination of the seedings for the ICC Champions Trophy 2008.

The ICC Development International (IDI) Board had decided earlier in a meeting that the 2008 tournament would feature the eight top teams as per the LG ICC ODI Championship table exactly six months prior to the scheduled start of the tournament.

The tournament has been staged previously in Bangladesh (1998), Kenya (2000), Sri Lanka (2002), England (2004) and India (2006). The present event will take place in Pakistan and then the next event will be hosted by West Indies in 2010.

GROUPS WITH SEEDINGS

Group A: Australia (1), India (4), Pakistan (5) and West Indies (8)
Group B: South Africa (2), New Zealand (3), Sri Lanka (6) and England (7)

Former Winners:

1998 – South Africa
2000 – New Zealand
2002 – India and Sri Lanka (joint winners)
2004 – West Indies
2006 – Australia