Dubai , 13 March 2008
The International Cricket Council today confirmed the groups for this September’s ICC Champions Trophy scheduled to take place in Pakistan .
Group A comprises of defending champion and 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 as well as 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, in its September 2005 meeting, decided 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 eight teams are split into two groups of four with a round-robin format in operation. The top two sides from each group will progress to the semi-finals with the winners of these matches contesting the final.
The full tournament schedule and information regarding venues will be announced in due course.
The following are the two groups (with seedings in brackets):
Group A: Australia (1), India (4), Pakistan (5), West Indies (8)
Group B: South Africa (2), New Zealand (3), Sri Lanka (6), England (7)
Former winners:
1998 – South Africa
2000 – New Zealand
2002 – India and Sri Lanka (joint winners)
2004 – West Indies
2006 – Australia
ICC MEDIA RELEASE