England T20 World Cup 2026 Group C: Teams & Fixtures

England's T20 World Cup 2026 Group C contained West Indies, Scotland, Nepal and Italy, and it was decided almost exactly as the seedings suggested it would be — but not before England had won a match by four runs, lost one by 30, and spent the middle of February with a qualification calculator open. West Indies finished top with four wins from four. England finished second with three wins and a defeat. Scotland, Nepal and Italy each won a single match and each went home after the group stage.

Twenty teams contested the 2026 tournament in India and Sri Lanka, split into four groups of five, with the top two from each group going into a Super 8 stage. That is the same structure used in 2024. It means a five-team group produces ten matches, each side plays four, and eight points is usually unbeatable while four points is usually not enough. Group C came in exactly on that line.

The final Group C standings

Pos	Team	P	W	L	Pts
1	West Indies	4	4	0	8
2	England	4	3	1	6
3–5	Scotland, Nepal, Italy	4	1	3	2

West Indies and England advanced to the Super 8s. The bottom three finished level on two points apiece and were separated by net run rate, a detail that mattered to nobody's qualification and a great deal to three sets of supporters. There were no washouts in the group, so every fixture produced a result and no side gained a point from a no-result — unlike Group B, where the Ireland v Zimbabwe fixture in Kandy was abandoned.

Every Group C match and result

The group was played across two Indian venues: the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Ten matches over thirteen days.

#	Date	Ground	Result
2	7 Feb	Eden Gardens, Kolkata	West Indies 182/5 beat Scotland 147 by 35 runs
5	8 Feb	Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	England 184/7 beat Nepal 180/6 by 4 runs
7	9 Feb	Eden Gardens, Kolkata	Scotland 207/4 beat Italy 134 by 73 runs
15	11 Feb	Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	West Indies 196/6 beat England 166 by 30 runs
17	12 Feb	Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	Italy 124/0 beat Nepal 123 by 10 wickets
23	14 Feb	Eden Gardens, Kolkata	England 155/5 beat Scotland 152 by 5 wickets
25	15 Feb	Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	West Indies 134/1 beat Nepal 133/8 by 9 wickets
29	16 Feb	Eden Gardens, Kolkata	England 202/7 beat Italy 178 by 24 runs
33	17 Feb	Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	Nepal 171/3 beat Scotland 170/7 by 7 wickets
37	19 Feb	Eden Gardens, Kolkata	West Indies 165/6 beat Italy 123 by 42 runs

Four of those ten were decided by fewer than 30 runs or with fewer than nine balls to spare. It was not a procession, whatever the final table suggests.

The five teams

West Indies. Two-time champions and the only side in the group to win every match. They chased down Nepal's total in 15.2 overs and beat England in Mumbai with a total of 196 for 6 that England never threatened. They carried that form into the Super 8s, where they made 254 for 6 against Zimbabwe before losing to South Africa and India and going out.

England. Champions in 2010 and 2022, seeded to top the group and beaten by West Indies instead. The four-run escape against Nepal in the opening fixture was the closest England came to a genuine disaster, and the details of the squad England picked explain a good deal about why the batting was volatile and the bowling held up.

Scotland. The most unusual story in the group. Scotland were not originally in the draw at all. Bangladesh withdrew from the tournament on 24 January 2026 following a dispute that began over a player release from an IPL squad and a request to relocate their matches out of India. Scotland were called up as replacements with roughly a fortnight's notice — no build-up series, no acclimatisation, a squad assembled around county professionals in the middle of the English off-season. They beat Italy by 73 runs, ran England to five wickets at Eden Gardens and lost a chase to Nepal by seven wickets on 17 February that would have taken them level on four points.

Nepal. Beaten by four runs by England in the opening fixture, which is as close as an associate side has come to knocking over a full member in the first week of a World Cup. Their bowling was disciplined throughout; the batting failed twice, against Italy and West Indies, and that was the difference.

Italy. Making their World Cup debut after qualifying through the European route in July 2025. They demolished Nepal by ten wickets inside 13 overs and made 178 against England, a higher total than they managed against either Scotland or West Indies.

How England's four matches went

England's group campaign was, in sequence, a scare, a defeat, a scrap and a comfortable-looking win with an uncomfortable hour in the middle.

The Nepal opener at the Wankhede was won by four runs defending 184 for 7. The West Indies fixture at the same ground three days later was lost by 30 after England were bowled out for 166 in 19 overs. The Scotland game at Eden Gardens was a low-scoring chase completed with ten balls to spare — Scotland made 152, England got there for the loss of five wickets. And England's win over Italy on 16 February, by 24 runs, confirmed qualification with three days of the group still to run.

Two of those wins were by four runs and five wickets respectively. England went through, but a side that reached a semi-final did so having spent a fortnight looking like one that might not get out of the group at all.

The tie-breaker rules, and why they nearly mattered

In the ICC's group format, two points are awarded for a win, one for a tie or a no result, none for a defeat. Where teams finish level on points, the order is decided by:

1. The greater number of wins.
2. Net run rate across all group matches.
3. The result of the head-to-head match between the tied teams.
4. If still level, the pre-tournament seeding.

Net run rate is calculated across the whole group stage, not per match, and a total that is chased down uses the overs actually faced rather than the full twenty. That last detail is why teams occasionally rush a completed chase rather than knocking off the winning runs in the twentieth over.

For England, the live scenario was straightforward but unpleasant. After the West Indies defeat on 11 February, England were on two points from two with two matches to play. Two wins meant six points and qualification regardless of anything else. One win from the remaining two would have left England on four points and dependent on Scotland, Nepal and Italy failing to reach four themselves — which, as it turned out, all three did. The complete set of branches, including the net run rate positions England would have needed, is worked through in the qualification scenarios in detail.

What happened next: the Super 8s

Group C's two qualifiers were separated in the Super 8 draw. England joined Super 8 Group 2 with Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand; West Indies went into Group 1 with India, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

England won all three Super 8 matches — Sri Lanka by 51 runs in Kandy, Pakistan by two wickets, New Zealand by four wickets in Colombo — and topped the group. West Indies beat Zimbabwe by 107 runs but lost to South Africa and India, and were eliminated. Group C therefore sent its runner-up to a semi-final and its winner home, which is the sort of thing the format does.

England's semi-final at the Wankhede Stadium on 5 March produced 499 runs and a seven-run defeat to India. The 2026 tournament in full has the whole competition, from the Bangladesh withdrawal to India's 96-run win over New Zealand in the final at Ahmedabad.

The two grounds, and what they did to the scores

Splitting a five-team group across only two venues gave Group C an unusually consistent set of conditions, and the totals reflect it. The eight completed first innings across the ten matches ranged from 123 to 207. Nobody made 220. In a tournament where seven centuries were scored and India finished the final on 255 for 5, Group C was the low-scoring pool.

Eden Gardens in Kolkata, with its short square boundaries and fast outfield, produced the two biggest totals in the group — Scotland's 207 for 4 against Italy and England's 202 for 7 in the same fixture slot a week later. The Wankhede in Mumbai, which has a reputation as a batting ground, played slower in the first fortnight than it did in the semi-final on 5 March, and three of the five matches there were won defending or chasing something under 190.

For a British audience the practical consequence was scheduling. Both grounds sit in the Indian Standard Time zone, five and a half hours ahead of GMT in February, so an afternoon start in Mumbai or Kolkata was mid-morning at home and an evening start was early afternoon. No England group match required a night shift.

Group C in the wider English context

England came into 2026 having won the men's title twice, in 2010 and 2022. Reaching a semi-final and losing by seven runs in the highest-scoring match in the tournament's history is not a failure by any reasonable standard, but the group stage exposed the thing English white-ball cricket had been arguing about since 2023: a batting order built for tempo that collapses when the tempo goes wrong, and a bowling attack whose depth depends heavily on the fitness of two or three individuals.

Both Jos Buttler and Phil Salt travelled as wicketkeeping options, which tells you how the top order was constructed. The domestic pipeline that produced that top order — county T20, the franchise competition, the balance between the two — is set out in how English domestic cricket is structured, and The Hundred is where most of these players spend their August.

For the longer view, England cricket team records collects the milestone numbers, and the history of England cricket covers how a country that invented the game took until 2010 to win a global white-ball trophy. That first title, the 2010 win in Barbados, and England's 2022 title in Melbourne remain the only two.

Frequently asked questions

Which teams were in England's Group C at the T20 World Cup 2026?

England, West Indies, Scotland, Nepal and Italy. Scotland were a late replacement for Bangladesh, who withdrew from the tournament on 24 January 2026, about a fortnight before the opening match.

Who topped Group C at the T20 World Cup 2026?

West Indies, with four wins from four and eight points. England finished second on six points. Both qualified for the Super 8 stage; Scotland, Nepal and Italy were eliminated.

How many points did England get in Group C?

Six. England beat Nepal, Scotland and Italy and lost to West Indies, giving three wins from four matches. Six points was enough for second place with a match of the group still to be played.

What are the tie-breakers in a T20 World Cup group?

Number of wins first, then net run rate, then the head-to-head result between the tied sides, then pre-tournament seeding. Net run rate is calculated over all four group matches, and a successful chase counts the overs actually faced.

Where were England's Group C matches played?

At two grounds. England played Nepal and West Indies at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, and Scotland and Italy at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. All ten Group C fixtures were split between those two venues.

Did England win their group?

No. England finished second in Group C behind West Indies, who beat them by 30 runs in Mumbai on 11 February. Second place still produced the better tournament: England won all three Super 8 matches and reached the semi-finals, while West Indies went out at the Super 8 stage.

Where can I read more about the England section?

The England section index lists every page in this cluster. For the previous global 50-over event on home soil, see the 2019 World Cup at Lord's.