By IANS
Dubai : After stunning Australia in their backyard, India will get another chance to battle it out with the World Champions as both teams are in the same group at the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy to be held in September in Pakistan.
Apart from defending champions Australia and India, Group A has Pakistan and West Indies, while Group B has South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and England.
The groupings were finalised on the basis of the teams’ rankings in the LG ICC ODI Championship table as on March 12, the cut-off date for seeding the teams for the biennial tournament.
Australia, as the number one team in the standings, are seeded at the top, while South Africa, who are all set to overtake the World Champions, are seeded second, followed by third-ranked New Zealand.
India, the joint winners of the tournament in 2002 with Sri Lanka, are seeded fourth, one place ahead of Pakistan.
Mahela Jayawardena’s men are the sixth seeds, with England and West Indies following them in that order.
The top two sides from each group will enter the semi-finals after the round-robin group stage.
The two groups (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)