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The pools and official tournament schedule have been released for the 2015 WBSC Men's Fastpitch World Championships in Saskatoon, Canada, to be played from 26 June to 5 July, where the GB Men's Team will be looking for a playoff place.
The 14th edition of the flagship men's fastpitch event will feature 16 teams from Asia, Europe, North and South America and Oceania, and a total of 73 games, 56 in a round-robin format, followed by placement and playoff games.
This is the last Men's Fastpitch World Championships for which qualification was necessary, as the tournament, like all other softball World Championships, will be an open-entry event in future. The GB Men's Team, which will be coached by Norman Ames and with Steve Fullan in his last stint as Team Manager, just missed out on qualifying for the tournament at European Championships in 2014 but was recently granted a wild card entry when the qualifying teams from Africa withdrew.
GB had qualified by right for the previous three World Championships, finishing ninth, eighth and ninth to rank among the top ten teams in the world.
Pools
As usual in softball World Championships, the teams will be divided into two eight-team groups for round-robin play, with the top four teams in each pool moving on to a double Page playoff round. The bottom four teams in each pool will have consolation playoffs to determine final placings.
The pools (in alphabetical order) are:
POOL A
Argentina
Canada
Czech Republic
Great Britain
Guatemala
Indonesia
New Zealand
Philippines
POOL B
Australia
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
USA
Venezuela
Opening Day
All 16 countries will be competing on Opening Day on Friday, 26 June, with action beginning at 09:30 local time.
Opening ceremonies will be held at 17:30 that afternoon at the main competition field, which will be followed by Canada playing Guatemala, making their Men's World Championship debut, in front of the home crowd.
The gold medal game will take centre stage on Sunday 5 July at 14:30, and will be preceded by the bronze medal match at 11:30.
New Zealand will be aiming to repeat as world champions following their gold medal performance on their home turf in 2013, when they defeated Venezuela 4-1 in the final, with Australia earning the bronze medal.
GB schedule
The GB Team will open their tournament at 2.30 pm local time on 26 June with what should be a winnable game against Indonesia, but things will get tougher from there, with GB's second game against the defending champions New Zealand and their third game against the European champions Czech Republic. Four wins from seven games will be needed to earn a playoff place.
GB's round-robin schedule (all times are local times, six hours behind Britain) will be:
June 26: GB v Indonesia at 14.30
June 27: GB v New Zealand at 20.30
June 28: GB v Czech Republic at 13.00
June 29: GB v Guatemala at 12.30
June 30: GB v Philippines at 12.30
July 1: GB v Canada at 15.00
July 2: GB v Argentina at 10.00
Trophy and consolation playoffs will run from 3-5 July.
It is hoped that all games from the tournament will be webstreamed, but watch this website for more information.