India and Sri Lanka are the joint hosts of the 2026 T20 World Cup for boys. The ICC has finalized Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai as the venues for the matches to be held in India. The matches will be played in three venues in Sri Lanka. Two of them are in Colombo and Pallekele.

The T20 World Cup will start from February 7 next year. The tournament will end with the final in Ahmedabad on March 8. Indian news agency PTI reported that the ICC may announce the schedule of the T20 World Cup next week. Cricket portal ESPNCricinfo reported that most of the participating teams are waiting to receive the grouping and schedule of the World Cup from the ICC. The cricket governing body has not yet announced anything about the distribution of tickets for the tournament.

As per the previous MoU, Pakistan will play all their matches in Sri Lanka. This agreement was reached between the BCCI and the PCB so that the two countries can play each other’s multi-nation tournaments at neutral venues. If Pakistan reaches the final of the next T20 World Cup, the final match will be held in Sri Lanka.

The format of the 2026 T20 World Cup will be the same as the 2024 edition. The 20 teams will be divided into four groups of five teams each. Each team will play the other team once.

The top two teams from each group will advance to the Super Eights, which will be divided into two groups of four teams each. The top two teams from the two Super Eights will play in the semi-finals.

The top seven teams from the 2024 T20 World Cup, apart from the hosts India and Sri Lanka, have automatically qualified for the tournament—Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, South Africa, the United States and the West Indies. The three teams that have qualified for the next World Cup based on the T20 rankings are New Zealand, Pakistan and Ireland.

Canada has qualified for the next World Cup from the Americas qualifiers. The Netherlands and Italy have qualified for the World Cup from the European qualifiers. This is Italy’s first time participating in the World Cup.

Zimbabwe and Namibia have qualified from the African qualifiers. Nepal, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have qualified from the Asia-Pacific qualifiers.