The 2019 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifier was a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

tournament held during October and November 2019 in the United Arab Emirates to determine which teams would qualify for the

2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup The 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup was the seventh ICC Men's T20 World Cup tournament, with the matches played in the United Arab Emirates and Oman from 17 October to 14 November 2021. The West Indies were the defending champions, but were eventu ...

tournament. The six teams finishing highest in the qualifier tournament joined Sri Lanka and

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

in the first group stage of the 2020 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. The tournament formed part of the

ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier The ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifier (previously the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier) was a Twenty20 International tournament run under the auspices of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament served as the final qualifying event for ...

series, with the Netherlands winning the final. In April 2018, the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are 108 national associations, with 12 Full Members and 96 Associate Members. Founded in 1909 as the ' ...

(ICC) granted full international status to

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single inn ...

men's matches played between member sides from 1 January 2019 onwards. Therefore, all the matches in the Regional Finals and the Qualifier itself, were played as full

Twenty20 International A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...

s (T20Is). In July 2019, the ICC suspended

Zimbabwe Cricket Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC), previously known as the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) until 2004, is the governing body for the sport of cricket in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Cricket is a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC), and administers th ...

, with the team barred from taking part in ICC events, which put their participation in the tournament in doubt. The following month, with Zimbabwe banned from taking part in international cricket tournaments, the ICC named

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

as their replacement in the tournament.

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

were the first team to qualify for the 2020 ICC Men's T20 World Cup from the tournament, after they won Group A, finishing above the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

net run rate Net run rate (NRR) is a statistical method used in analysing teamwork and/or performance in cricket. It is the most commonly used method of ranking teams with equal points in limited overs league competitions, similar to goal difference in foo ...

. It was the first time that Papua New Guinea had qualified for a World Cup in any format.

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

became the second team to qualify when they won Group B, also on net run rate. Both teams also advanced to the playoff section of the qualifier. They were joined by the

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

from Group A, and

Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...

, the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

from Group B. In the first qualifier match in the playoffs, the Netherlands qualified for the T20 World Cup when they beat the United Arab Emirates by eight wickets, after the UAE only scored 80 runs in their innings. The second qualifier match saw Namibia advance to their first T20 World Cup after beating Oman by 54 runs. Scotland beat tournament hosts the United Arab Emirates in the third qualifier by 90 runs to secure their place in the Men's T20 World Cup. The final qualifier match saw Oman become the last team to qualify for the Men's T20 World Cup, after they narrowly beat Hong Kong by 12 runs. Scotland beat Oman by five wickets to win the fifth-place playoff match. In the first semi-final, the Netherlands beat Ireland by 21 runs to advance to the final. They were joined in the final with Papua New Guinea, after they beat Namibia by 18 runs in the second semi-final. Ireland beat Namibia by 27 runs to win the third-place playoff. The final saw the Netherlands beat Papua New Guinea by seven wickets to win the tournament. Namibia's captain,

Gerhard Erasmus Merwe Gerhard Erasmus (born 11 April 1995) is a Namibian cricketer, and the current captain of the Namibia cricket team. Career Erasmus first played at senior level for Namibia in February 2011, aged 15, against a touring Marylebone Cricket Clu ...

, was named the player of the tournament.

Teams and qualifications

Sub-regional qualification groups began on 26 February 2018 in Argentina. In the Americas group, both the Cayman Islands and

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = "Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , es ...

registered wins against

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. A total of 61 Associate Member teams out of originally scheduled 62 teams competed.

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

were originally scheduled to compete in the Southern sub region group in the Africa Qualifier, but later withdrew. Of these teams, 25 of them progressed to the regional finals in 2019, with the top sevenThe

initially qualified to the Asia Regional Final, but later automatically progressed to the qualifier tournament as the host. teams progressing to the qualifier tournament. They were joined by the top six teams from the 2015 qualifier that were outside the top ten places in the

ICC T20I Championship The ICC Men's T20I Team Rankings is an international Twenty20 cricket rankings system of the International Cricket Council. After every T20I match, the two teams involved receive points based on a mathematical formula. The total of each team's p ...

by the cut-off date of 31 December 2018, and the tournament host.

ICC T20I Championship

Host nation, Australia, and the nine best teams (according to the ICC T20I Championship ranking of 31 December 2018) who played in the last edition of ICC Men's T20 World Cup qualified for the final tournament directly. The remaining six entrants from the last tournament competed in the Regional Qualifiers of the World Cup qualifying tournaments. Of the teams in the ICC T20I Championship ranking, initially the

and

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

could only qualify through regional competitions. However, in March 2019, the ICC announced that the UAE would host the qualifier tournament, resulting in their automatic qualification. Later the same month, the ICC released the match schedule for all the Regional Finals, with the UAE omitted from the fixture list for the Asia Regional Final. The number of teams that could qualify from the Asia Regional Final was also reduced from two to one. The final rankings for automatic qualification as of 31 December 2018 were as follows:

Regional qualifications

62 teams were originally scheduled to compete in 12 regional qualification groups during 2018 across five regions, with 61 taking part. The top 25 teams progressed to five regional finals in 2019, with eight teams progressing to the 2019 qualifier tournament. The host nation of each sub-regional group and regional final groups are shown in bold. All the sub-regional stage matches in the European section were held in the Netherlands.

Squads

UAE squad

Ahead of the tournament, Mohammad Naveed was withdrawn from the UAE's squad, with Ahmed Raza named as captain in his place. Qadeer Ahmed and Shaiman Anwar were also dropped from the UAE's squad, with Waheed Ahmed, Darius D'Silva and Junaid Sidique added to their squad. Two days before the start of the tournament, the ICC confirmed that the three players dropped from the UAE's squad had all been suspended after they had breached cricket's anti-corruption rules. Mohammad Naveed and Shaiman Anwar were believed to be planning to fix matches in the tournament, while Qadeer Ahmed was approached to fix a match during the UAE's tour of Zimbabwe in April 2019. On 21 October 2019,

Ashfaq Ahmed Ashfaq Ahmed Khan ( ur, ; 22 August 1925 – 7 September 2004) was a writer, playwright and broadcaster from Pakistan. His works in Urdu included novels, short stories and plays for television and radio of Pakistan. He received the President's ...

became the fourth UAE cricketer to be suspended by the ICC. Ahmed had played in the first two matches for the team in the tournament. On 21 October 2019, Ghulam Shabber, the UAE's

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. ...

, did not show up for the pre-match meeting ahead of the fixture against

. It later transpired that Shabber had left the country without an explanation, before being traced to Pakistan. On 26 October 2019, in an interview for '' The National'', Shabber denied any involvement with corruption and announced his retirement from cricket, citing the poor remuneration for playing. He said that "if there is something with regards to anti-corruption, I am ready to cooperate in Pakistan. But I have decided cricket is not in my future". Following the conclusion of the group stage, the ICC's Event Technical Committee approved two replacements in the UAE's squad.

Faizan Asif Faizan Asif (born 21 December 1992) is a Pakistani-born cricketer who played for the United Arab Emirates national cricket team. He made his Twenty20 International debut for the United Arab Emirates against the Netherlands on 17 March 2014. In Oc ...

replaced Ashfaq Ahmed and

Vriitya Aravind Vriitya Aravind (born 11 June 2002) is an Indian-born cricketer who plays for the United Arab Emirates national cricket team. He plays as wicket-keeper batsman for the United Arab Emirates cricket team. In October 2019, he was added to the UAE's ...

was named as Ghulam Shabber's replacement. On 30 October 2019, the

Emirates Cricket Board United Arab Emirates Cricket Board is the governing body of certain cricket activities in United Arab Emirates. It is United Arab Emirates's representative at the International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the ...

(ECB) confirmed that they had suspended Shabber for absconding, and that he was part of the ICC's anti-corruption investigation. In March 2021, Mohammad Naveed and Shaiman Anwar were both found guilty of corruption, with each player given an eight-year ban from all cricket, backdated to 16 October 2019. In July 2021, the ICC also handed eight-year bans to Amir Hayat and Ashfaq Ahmed for violating the anti-corruption code. Their bans were both backdated to 13 September 2020. In September 2021, the ICC also issued a four-year ban to Ghulam Shabber, following the conclusion of their anti-corruption investigation.

Other changes

In September 2019, ahead of the

2019–20 Oman Pentangular Series The 2019–20 Oman Pentangular Series was a Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket tournament, that was held in Oman in October 2019. Originally scheduled to be played between four teams, it was increased to five. The series was played between Ho ...

, Hong Kong's

Babar Hayat Babar Hayat (born 5 January 1992) is a Pakistani-born Hong Kong cricketer, who plays for the Hong Kong cricket team. He is a right-handed batsman and a former captain of the national team. International career Babar made his T20I cricket comple ...

declared that he was no longer available to play for Hong Kong. Brothers Tanveer Ahmed and

Ehsan Nawaz Ehsan Nawaz ( ur, ; (born 21 March 1995) is a Hong Kong cricketer. He played for Hong Kong in the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 tournament. He made his One Day International debut against Afghanistan in the 2014 ACC Premier League on 1 May 2014. In ...

also withdrew themselves for selection. Anantha Krishna was ruled out of Singapore's squad after suffering an injury in a training session. He was replaced by Aahan Gopinath Achar. On 24 October 2019, the ICC announced that the bowling actions of Abiodun Abioye (Nigeria), Tom Sole (Scotland) and

Selladore Vijayakumar Selladore Vijayakumar (born 29 July 1979) is a cricketer. He plays for Singapore national cricket team. He is a right-arm off break bowler. Vijayakumar had played for the Singapore team in the 2014 ICC World Cricket League Division Three. In t ...

(Singapore) were all found to be

illegal Illegal, or unlawful, typically describes something that is explicitly prohibited by law, or is otherwise forbidden by a state or other governing body. Illegal may also refer to: Law * Violation of law * Crime, the practice of breaking the ...

. They were all suspended from bowling in international cricket matches until an assessment shows that their bowling action is legal. Ahead of the playoff matches,

Dylan Budge Dylan Evers Budge (born 11 September 1995) is a Scottish cricketer. He made his One Day International (ODI) debut for Scotland against England on 10 June 2018. He made his Twenty20 International (T20I) debut for Scotland against Pakistan on 12 ...

replaced Ollie Hairs in Scotland's squad, after Hairs suffered a fracture in his foot. Ireland also made a replacement, with

Barry McCarthy Barry John McCarthy (born 13 September 1992) is an Irish cricketer. He made his first-class debut in 2015, and plays for the Ireland cricket team, and previously the English side Durham. Primarily a right-arm medium pace bowler, he also bats ri ...

coming into their squad, replacing

David Delany David Colin Alex Delany (born 28 December 1997) is an Irish cricketer. He made his Twenty20 cricket debut for Munster Reds in the 2017 Inter-Provincial Trophy on 16 June 2017. He made his first-class debut for Leinster Lightning in the 2017 Int ...

, who was ruled out with a knee injury.

Match officials

In October 2019, the ICC named the officials for the tournament, with G. S. Lakshmi becoming the first woman to be named as a referee at an ICC event.

Umpires

Roland Black Roland Black (born 22 July 1971) is a Northern Irish umpire (cricket), cricket umpire. He has been an umpire since 2006. He was added to ICC Associates and Affiliates Umpire Panel, ICC Associate and Affiliate Umpires Panel in 2016. On 14 July ...

* Chris Brown *

Lyndon Hannibal Lyndon Hannibal (born 20 November 1965) is a Sri Lankan international cricket umpire and a former first class cricketer. He stood as an umpire in the tour match between Sri Lanka Board President's XI vs Indian national cricket team in August 201 ...

* Sam Nogajski * Ahmed Shah Pakteen * Allahudien Paleker *

Sundaram Ravi Sundaram Ravi (born 22 April 1966) is an Indian cricket umpire who was a member of the ICC Elite Panel of Umpires between 2015 and 2019. After making his Twenty20 International (T20I) debut in 2011, he officiated in over 100 international match ...

Ahsan Raza Ahsan Raza (born 29 May 1974 in Lahore, Pakistan) is a Pakistani cricket umpire and former cricketer. In November 2020, in the second Twenty20 International (T20I) between Pakistan and Zimbabwe, he stood in his 50th T20I match as an on-field u ...

Rashid Riaz Rashid Riaz (born 27 February 1976) is a Pakistani cricket umpire and former first-class cricketer. He is now an umpire and has stood in matches in the 2015–16 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. He stood in his first Twenty20 International (T20I) match betwe ...

Sharfuddoula Sharfuddoula Ibne Shahid (born 16 October 1976), also known as Sharfuddoula Saikat, is an international cricket umpire and a former first-class player from Bangladesh. Playing career In 1994 Sharfuddoula played three matches for Bangladesh at ...

Alex Wharf Alexander George Wharf (born 4 June 1975) is a former English ODI cricketer and a first-class cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-handed fast-medium bowler, who ended his career with the Welsh side Glamorgan County Cricket Clu ...

Raveendra Wimalasiri Raja Raveendra Wimalasiri (born 19 August 1969) is a Sri Lankan cricketer and umpire. He stood in his first One Day International (ODI) on 23 July 2013, between Sri Lanka and South Africa. He stood in his first Twenty20 International (T20I) on 2 ...

Referees

The ICC also named three match referees for the tournament. *

Jeff Crowe Jeffrey John Crowe (born 14 September 1958) is a former New Zealand cricketer. He played Test and One Day International cricket for New Zealand from 1983 to 1990, and first-class cricket for South Australia and then Auckland. He has been an IC ...

* G. S. Lakshmi * Gerrie Pienaar

Warm-up matches

Ahead of the main tournament, each team played two warm-up matches. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Group stage

Group A

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Group B

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Playoffs

Bracket

Qualifier 1

Qualifier 2

Qualifier 3

Qualifier 4

5th Place Playoff

Semifinal 1

Semifinal 2

3rd Place Playoff

Final

Final standings

These were the final standings following the conclusion of the tournament. The top six places were used for seeding purposes for the 2020 Men's T20 World Cup. Qualified for the

Notes

References

External links

Series home at ESPN Cricinfo
{{DEFAULTSORT:2019 ICC Men's World Twenty20 2019 in Emirati cricket 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup International cricket competitions in 2019–20 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifier International cricket competitions in the United Arab Emirates ICC ICC