A T20 frenzy is about to begin in India as the T20 World Cup is followed by the Indian Premier League over the next two months and that prospect is extremely exciting.
It is the T20 World Cup which comes first with the tournament beginning on Tuesday although the big names don’t enter the fray for another week.
The competition begins with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe being joined by six associate nations in two groups of four with the winners of each group joining the eight more established countries in the main draw.
The ‘Super 10’ stage sees two groups of five with everyone playing each other in their group once with the top two in each group moving into the semi-final ahead of the final shortly into April.
India go into the tournament not just as the hosts but as the overwhelming favourites too. They warmed up for the competition with series wins over Sri Lanka and Australia and won the Asia Cup too so they are very much the team to beat. The 2007 champions were beaten finalists in 2014.
It has to be said that India will have to win this the hard way because they have drawn much the tougher of the two groups. They are in a group with Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand and most probably Bangladesh.
Contrast that to the other group which will see England facing West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka and one of Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Hong Kong or Scotland. There is no doubt which of the two I would rather be in.
Australia’s record in this format of the game is very poor and it is probably no surprise they are yet to win the event. With that draw they will do very well just to make it out of the group let alone go all the way.
You can never truly be sure of what you’re going to get from Pakistan but if their batting can hold up over the course of the event then the 2009 champions might have a part to play in this tournament. You’d be taking a huge leap of faith though.
New Zealand represent a bit of value in the outright market although if I’m honest I would have wanted Brendon McCullum to be around for me to be really tempted but you could easily see them coming out of the group and it would be anyone’s from the quarter finals onwards.
In the other group South Africa are the shortest in the outright market and you can see why. They have a powerful batting line up and a couple of really solid bowling options but do they have it mentally and psychologically? Even the strongest South African would have to wonder the answer to that.
England come next in the betting from this group and actually for once I think England have a chance of doing something on the global stage. They have a series of powerful match winners with the bat and in a tournament which is likely to be batting friendly that is no bad thing but ultimately somewhere along the line I would expect their bowlers to be found out.
Sri Lanka have had a very troubled build up to the defence of their title and you could be forgiven for thinking they are largely making up the numbers here. You shouldn’t write a side like Sri Lanka off in any one day tournament but I don’t see them carrying the quality or the consistency to do much damage here.
Of the qualifiers the only one I could see doing anything would be Bangladesh. If they were going to go into England’s group you could make a case for backing them with a semi-final place a distinct possibility but even though they’ve improved they’ll have their work cut out coming out of India’s group.
That leaves us with one side and it is the side I believe are the best value in the outright market and that is the West Indies. The 2012 winners made it to the semi-final in the defence of their title when they lost a rain affected semi-final so their record in this tournament recently stacks up to any.
West Indies cricket has been a bit of a laughing stock off the field for a while but they generally turn up with their best whenever this tournament or indeed this format is concerned and we know they have so many players just tailor made for this tournament and format.
In Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Andre Russell, Darren Sammy, Dwayne Bravo and Jason Holder they have some huge match winners and that is without mentioning underrated players like Andre Fletcher, Denesh Ramdin, Samuel Badree et al.
There is no batting line up in this tournament more explosive than the West Indies one and they have the right mix in their bowling attack to be dangerous. As long as they don’t implode among themselves or with their board at any point given they are in the easier group I find it hard to believe the Caribbean boys won’t be deep in the mix when this tournament becomes a knockout.
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