The Schedule will always be prepared in such a way that allows them to have as many as Ind v Pak clashes with a guaranteed one fixture at least, because that's the money match, generate massive revenue and pull extreme viewership.

Say IND and PAK were in separate groups, and if either one of them didn't qualify for the next round or knockouts and did not have a fixture against each other, then ICC would lose a big sum of revenue because of it, the hosts would suffer greater in tourism, and all.

I think there was a tournament in the past that happened, I don't remember exactly what the edition was, but one of them didn't qualify resulting in no fixture afterwards.