New Zealand vs Pakistan: T20 World Cup Super Eights – teams, start, lineups
Who: New Zealand vs Pakistan
What: 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Super Eights
When: Saturday, February 21, at 7pm (13:30 GMT)
Where: R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo, Sri Lanka
How to follow: We’ll have all the buildup on Al Jazeera Sport from 10:30 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream.
The Super Eights stage of the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup starts on Saturday with a match between two sides considered dark horses for the title, New Zealand and Pakistan.
Pakistan are the previous winners of the competition, but sit outside those ranked as favourites in this edition, as do New Zealand.
Both, however, have the capability of taking down the game’s top names in an instant.
Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at the match-up between two of the pretenders for the crown, who will hope to lay down a marker as the second phase of the tournament gets under way.
Pakistan look to shake ‘nearly men’ tag with T20 World Cup crown in sight
Shadab Khan said Pakistan believed they could go on and win the T20 World Cup after producing their best performance of the tournament to secure their last Super Eights berth on Wednesday.
Bowling out Namibia for 97 to win by a colossal 102 runs in Colombo meant Pakistan bounced back in style after a defeat to archrivals India had left them in danger of elimination.
“We didn’t take the [Namibia] game lightly after so much talk about one match against India,” said Shadab, who scored a brisk 22-ball 36 and grabbed 3-19 in the match against the Africans.
“We are on the right track to achieve the goal of winning the World Cup, and we are following a process,” he added.
Shadab warned that the Super Eights, however, will be a step up with England and co-hosts Sri Lanka awaiting Pakistan after the New Zealand test.
“There are eight good teams, so it will be a tough stage, and all matches will be high-pressure games,” said Shadab.
