By IANS
Dubai : Defending world Twenty20 cricket champions India were Wednesday grouped along with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe for the 2009 Twenty20 World Championship in England.
The groupings for the 12-nation tournament were finalised at the two-day meeting of the board of directors of the International Cricket Council (ICC) that ended here Wednesday.
India defeated Pakistan in the final of the first edition of the championship held in South Africa in September.
Pakistan is seeded second and clubbed with England and the first qualifier from ICC associate member, the ICC announced here.
The board discussed the groupings following a request by hosts England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
“It asked for early determination in order to proceed with the venue event bidding process which, in turn, would allow match tickets to go on sale at the earliest possible opportunity,” ICC said.
“Given that not enough matches have been played in this format to allow viable official rankings to be established, the board agreed the groups for the 2009 event would be based on the finishing positions in the 2007 tournament.”
The groups:
Group A: India (1), Bangladesh (8), Zimbabwe (9)
Group B: Pakistan (2), England (7), Associate Member 1 (10)
Group C: Australia (3), Sri Lanka (6), West Indies (11)
Group D: New Zealand (4), South Africa (5), Associate Member 2 (12)
Note: Figures in parenthesis are the finishing positions of the 2007 tournament