Desert T20 2017: Points Table and Team Standings

Desert T20 2017: Points Table and Team Standings

The Desert T20 2017 Challenge is a Twenty20 International (T20I) tournament that is being played in Dubai and Abu Dhabi between January 14 to 20. The tournament includes eight associate teams, them being United Arab Emirates (UAE), Afghanistan, Ireland, Netherlands, Oman, Namibia, Hong Kong and Scotland. Papua New Guinea, who are also an associate team, declined to participate in the tournament and were replaced by Namibia — who do not have T20I status.

The eight teams are divided in two groups of four teams. Group A includes Afghanistan, Ireland, UAE and Namibia, while teams of Group B are Oman, Scotland, Netherlands and Hong Kong.

The fixtures of the tournament were confirmed by the Emirates Cricket Board earlier in December 2016. Two teams from each group will qualify to semi-finals. The semi-finals and final of the tournament will be played on same day on January 20 at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

Since the tournament is played at UAE’s home venues, they will have the advantage. Although, despite this being the tournament of associate teams, Afghanistan are the favourites as they have the best team ranking in ICC T20 ranking. Afghanistan are currently at ninth spot in the table while Netherlands (11th) have the second best ranking among the teams in the tournament.

Ireland are also among the big team despite not having a good ranking. Oman is another team on rise and in short span, they have built their image of creating upsets as they did in ICC World T20 2016 by beating Ireland.

Note: Points table is updated till match 12.