India, Pakistan, Australia grouped together for Champions Trophy

Dubai, Mar 13 (UNI) Defending Champion Australia, India and Pakistan have been grouped together for the ICC Champions Trophy which is scheduled to be held in Pakistan in September this year.

Group A will have top seed Australia along with India, Pakistan and West Indies while Group B comprises South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and England.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) today confirmed the groups on the basis of teams' rankings in the ICC ODI Championship table as on March 12 which was the cut-off date for the determination of the seedings for tournament.

The eight teams will go through a round-robin format and have split into two groups of four.

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 ICC Development International (IDI) Board, in it's September 2005 meeting, decided that the 2008 tournament would feature top eight teams as per the ICC ODI Championship table exactly six months prior to the scheduled start of the tournament.

Group A: Australia (1), India (4), Pakistan (5), West Indies (8) Group B: South Africa (2), New Zealand (3), Sri Lanka (6), England (7) UNI XC RAR KK KN1449