2026 T20 World Cup: Defending champion India begins campaign against USA

The M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru will not host any matches; the development came despite the venue only recently reopening for cricket after a prolonged suspension following a fatal stampede in June

Suryakumar Yadav, who will lead India’s T20 World Cup title defence in less than three months, made no attempt to hide the opponent he hopes to meet in the final of the 2026 edition.

Rohit Sharma, who captained reigning champions India to glory at the previous Men’s T20 World Cup in 2024, has been named the tournament ambassador for the 2026 edition to be held in India and Sri Lanka.

Rohit was prolific for India in T20Is, finishing with 4231 runs at an average of 32.01 and a strike-rate of 140.89.

He is one of the few players to have been part of two successful Men’s T20 World Cup campaigns, the first of which came in the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2007, while the latter came in the latest edition of the tournament in 2024.

In the 2007 campaign, which was also Rohit’s debut in the format, the batter had a sensational run, hitting 88 runs without being dismissed, including crucial knocks in the Super Eights phase versus South Africa (50*) and in the final versus Pakistan (30*).

The 2024 campaign was even more special, where Rohit captained India to the elusive title.

He led by example and was prolific with the bat, being India’s highest run-getter with 257 runs at a strike-rate of 156.70.

His quickfire starts gave the Team in Blue an early advantage at the start of the innings. His standout performances came in the Super Eights against Australia (92 off 41) and the semi-final versus England (57 off 39).