“We invited all the team captains at the T20 World Cup to celebrate Babar Azam’s birthday,” the Pakistan Cricket Board said in a tweet. It described the 16 captains as “special guests”.

The right-handed batter is the only batter to register a hat-trick of ODI centuries on two occasions, the PCB said in a Twitter post while paying tribute to the captain. Babar has so far made 11,017 runs in international cricket and is the first batter to score two T20I hundreds.

New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, India’s Rohit Sharma, Afghanistan’s Mohammad Nabi and Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan were among the skippers who came to wish Babar.

The mega event would start with group-stage matches on Sunday, with Sri Lanka playing against Namibia. It would last till October 21. Four teams from the two groups would join the other teams in the Super 12 stage.

The groupings:

Round 1

Group A: Sri Lanka, Ireland, the Netherlands and Namibia Group B: Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Oman

Super 12s

Group 1: England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, A1 and B2. Group 2: India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, A2 and B1.

The final would take place on November 13 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.