ICC Men's T20 World Cup Preview & Betting Guide

The reigning champions India will be looking to defend their T20 World Cup title in 2026 with the tournament being co-hosted by themselves and Sri Lanka.
ICC Men's T20 World Cup Preview & Betting Guide
James Banting
James Banting Tipster Competition Assistant

James has worked for the jockey club and has 20 years sports betting experience he utilises his skills in our tipster competitions and writes sports betting content.

2026 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Preview

The 2026 ICC Men's T20 World Cup will be a co-hosted tournament with India and Sri Lanka sharing hosting, Sri Lanka looked to host the tournament alone, however, due to the lack of stadiums, it was decided on a co-host with India.

The group stages will kick off in February of 2026 and the tournament will run through until the final sometime in March, will India retain their trophy and make it three wins to make them the outright most successful?

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The top seven teams from the 2024 tournament (excluding India) all receive an automatic berth for this tournament meaning the following teams will appear at the 2026 T20 World Cup:

Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, South Africa, the United States and the West Indies.

The two hosting countries, India and Sri Lanka get automatic places in the tournament and the top three ranked teams (excluding those already in) also get automatic berths, those are Ireland, New Zealand and Pakistan.

The remaining eight placed will be made up of the qualifiers, two from each of the African, Asia & European qualifications and then one from each of the Americas and East Asia-Pacific qualifications.

T20 World Cup 2026 16 Feb @ 14:00 - Outright Winner
India 2.75
Australia 5.50
England 6.50
South Africa 7.00
Pakistan 13.00
West Indies 13.00
New Zealand 17.00
Afghanistan 34.00
Sri Lanka 41.00
Bangladesh 151.00

ICC Men's T20 World Cup Betting Tips

There are some great cricket tipsters on OLBG and they will have you covered with their 2026 T20 World Cup Betting Tips throughout the tournament with predictions on who will win outright and each match.

The first option is to head over to the Best Cricket Tipsters page, here we display the best cricket tipsters on OLBG, by best we mean tipsters who have shown a profit over the past year for all of their cricket predictions, the page will only show tipsters who have open tips.

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If you want to see more in-depth options then head over to the Cricket Betting Predictions page, on this page you will be able to see which outcomes are being most supported by the expert cricket tipsters for each game and the tournament outcome market too.

In addition, you can click on each match to see much more, each market and outcome available will be shown along with the number of tips on each outcome and you can read the expert tipsters' thoughts on the games, and their reasoning for why they have backed their prediction.

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Also, if you haven't already, we are not sure why you wouldn't have! There have already been over a million downloads, get the OLBG App installed and have all of those T20 World Cup predictions in one easy place to find.

ICC Men's T20 World Cup Country Performances

When looking at the performances of the countries in the tournament, only focusing on those who have played at least ten matches then it is India who has the best strike rate winning 69.60% of the matches with thirty-five victories from their fifty-two games, there are four other countries which also find themselves in the sixty percentage range, South Africa with 66.66%, Australia with 63.82%, Pakistan with 60.78% and finally Sri Lanka with 60.18%.

Of course, winning when it matters is also important, England for example only has a 56% success rate, however, they are the joint most successful country in the tournament being two-time winners.

TeamPlayedWonLostTieNRWin%
India5235151(1)169.60%
South Africa4932160166.66%
Australia4730170063.82%
Pakistan5130192(0)060.78%
Sri Lanka5432211(1)060.18%
New Zealand4625192(0)056.52%
England5228220256.00%
West Indies4624201(1)154.44%
Zimbabwe208110142.10%
Afghanistan3012180040.00%
Netherlands2710160138.46%
Scotland227130235.00%
Namibia154101(1)030.00%
Ireland287180328.00%
Oman10261(0)127.77%
Bangladesh4512320127.27%

ICC Men's T20 World Cup Records

Highest Win Margin

Sri Lanka beat Kenya by 172 runs after setting them a target of 261 and then bowling them out for a total of 88 during the 2007 tournament.

Highest Innings Total

The 260/6 set by Sri Lanka in the previously mentioned record is also the highest-scoring innings, some thirty runs more than the next best which England (230/8) set in 2016.

Highest Match Aggregate

At the Wankhede Stadium in 2016, the match between England and South Africa set the highest aggregate score with England with 230 and South Africa with 229 for a total of 459 runs!

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Lowest Innings Total

The lowest-scoring innings which was set in 2014 when Sri Lanka bowled out the Netherlands for just 39 was matched in 2024 when the West Indies bowled out Uganda for the same score with Akeal Hosein taking 5 wickets.

Lowest Match Aggregate

Given the Netherlands batted first in the above record when only scoring 39, it's no surprise that the match is also the lowest-scoring aggregate with Sri Lanka hitting the needed 40 runs for a match total of 79 runs.

The game was one of four which have produced under 100 runs, two of those came at the most recent tournament with the 81 in the New Zealand / Uganda match being the closest to breaking the current record.

Contributor Information

We take great pride in the information provided in our cricket betting previews and the ICC Men's T20 World Cup Preview & Betting Guide is no exception. James and Dan work seamlessly together to collate and present the data in this superb guide to this event

James Banting

Cricket Tips and Event Manager

As the manager of our cricket tipsters and event preview blogs, James keeps a keen and meticulous track of the stats and results, updating them promptly following every event. His role also entails prepping our resources for all cricket events throughout the calendar. James has amassed a treasure trove of expertise and acumen in cricket betting. Be it a question from the team or the members, James stands as the go-to cricket savant, readily fielding all inquiries with his insight.

- James Banting, Tipster Competition Assistant

Dan Tracey

OLBG Data Scientist

Dan's specialist area is data; and lots of it! Wherever we need numbers to create our unique deep dive articles, Dan is our go-to.

- Dan Tracey, Data Scientist and Football Editor

The match played statistics and the ICC World Cup statistics are sourced from ESPNcricinfo and are correct as of the 2024 ICC World Cup Final.

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