ICC Twenty/20 World Championship fixtures announced

Steve Elworthy, the Tournament Director for the ICC Twenty/20 World Championship 2007, today announced the fixtures programme for the inaugural tournament which runs from 10 - 24 September 2007.

South Africa and the West Indies will open the Championship when they play each other at the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, on Tuesday 11 September.

A day after the opening match is played, Durban, Kingsmead Stadium, will host the first double-header of the Championship when New Zealand and Kenya square-up in the morning fixture (10h00 - 13h00). Following the conclusion of that match Pakistan and Scotland will play each other at 14h00.

On the same day Newlands, Cape Town, will host its first match when Australia takes on Zimbabwe in the night match (18h00 - 21h00).

In total, each venue will host a sum of nine games and the 12 participating nations (the 10 ICC Member Counties and two the Associate Countries) will be split into four groups comprising three teams to play in a round-robin format.

Once the round-robin stage is complete, the Championship will head into the Super Eight phase, with the top four positioned teams proceeding to the semi-finals which will culminate in the final. The final will be played on Heritage Day in Johannesburg on Monday 24.

The teams are expected to arrive in the country five to seven days prior to the start of the Championship and two days have been reserved for warm-up matches (Saturday, 08 and Sunday, 09 September).

In announcing the fixtures, Elworthy said: "The finalisation of the fixtures programme for this inaugural ICC Twenty/20 World Championship 2007 is a result of a successful process of consultation between the International Cricket Council, Cricket South Africa and the host stadiums.

"We are certainly pleased with the materialisation of this important development, as this means that the Local Organising Committee can now channel more of its energy on other awaiting programmes of action.

"Further, the fixtures programme has also been designed in a way that; even though there is going to be more than one game being played on each day, none of those games have been scheduled at the same time and it, therefore, becomes possible for viewers and spectators to watch all the games as the start times do not clash."