Now with the Asia Cup done and dusted, the focus of the
cricket fans will move on to a single event which is the Twenty20 World Cup
which is to be held in India from tomorrow. The main event does not kick start
from tomorrow but the qualifiers do. The bottom 8 teams fight it out among 4 in
a group and only the winner going to the main draw where the top 8 await them
and play a round-robin fixture with 10 teams split 5 each in a group. From there
the top 2 will qualify for the semi-final which will be played in Kotla and
Wankhede and the winners will play the summit clash in the Eden Gardens,
Kolkata on the 3rd of April.
Now who
are those 8 teams who gained qualification already?
INDIA:
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt.); Ravichandran Ashwin; Jasprit
Bumrah; Shikhar Dhawan; Ravindra Jadeja; Virat Kohli; Pawan Negi; Ashish Nehra;
Hardik Pandya; Ajinkya Rahane; Suresh Raina; Mohammed Shami; Rohit Sharma;
Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh.
The Home team/Hosts. Champions of the inaugural
edition and runners up of the previous edition, are now playing in home
conditions where they are considered difficult to beat. The batting is powered
by Rohit and Dhawan opening who recently told they are hoping to emulate what
Sourav and Sachin did 10-15 years back, and then comes Kohli, Yuvraj and Raina
who can change the match within overs and then knock, knock… someone has
answered Dhoni’s want of an aggressive hitter and a handy bowler, Hardik
Pandiya. The line-up is then followed by the skipper himself at 7, followed by
Jadeja, Ashwin, Bumrah and Nehra. The 4 bowlers have been in good form since
the start of 2016 in T20Is and the bench of Rahane, Harbhajan, Negi and Bhuvi
were all tested and their good form will make Dhoni not to worry for back-ups
for the main plan.
SOUTH AFRICA:
Faf du Plessis (capt.); Kyle Abbott; Hashim Amla; Farhaan
Behardien; Quniton de Kock; AB de Villiers; JP Duminy; David Miller; Chris
Morris; Aaron Phangiso; Kagiso Rabada; Rilee Rossouw; Dale Steyn; Imran Tahir
and David Wiese.
The
Saffers. They had just washed away some part of that CHOKERS tag with a
knock-out win over Sri Lanka in the CWC2015 quarters and almost went for the
finals. Now with form they are in and also not being alien to the Indian
conditions with the IPL and the previous 2-0 win in the T20 series, they will
hoping to go on high. In batting they have de Villiers and de Kock to
kick-start the innings which will be followed by du Plessis, Duminy, Behardien,
Miller and Wiese. In the bowling, they have Steyn, Abbott to combine and the young
Rabada who has shown promise to be the next-spearhead if Steyn calls it a day. For
the Indian conditions, they have Tahir and Phangiso with all-round experience
of Morris. In Rossouw and Amla they have fire and a dependable back-ups for the
main players.
WEST-INDIES:
Darren Sammy (capt.); Samuel Badree; Sulieman Benn; Carlos
Brathwaite; Dwayne Bravo; Johnson Charles; Andre Fletcher; Chris Gayle; Jason
Holder; Ashley Nurse; Denesh Ramdin; Andre Russell; Marlon Samuels; Lendl
Simmons and Jerome Taylor.
The men
from Caribbean. Once they were a force and now they are a shadow of that when
considered in the Tests and ODIs. But come the T20 format, where their marquee
players earn money playing the same format round the year, it will be hard to
stop them in this shortest format of the game. A team which comprises of
game-changers like Gayle, Russell, Sammy, DJ Bravo, Holder, Simmons, Samuels
and so on… all they need to do is play in unison and they would be team to beat
if any other teams wants to keep their hands on
the trophy.
NEW ZEALAND:
Kane Williamson (capt.), Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Grant
Elliott, Martin Guptill, Adam Milne, Mitchell McClenaghan, Nathan McCullum,
Colin Munro, Henry Nicholls, Luke Ronchi, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim
Southee and Ross Taylor.
The Kiwis.
When it comes to the World cup, do not keep them aside, for they can make you
pay for that. Their batting looks strong even after the departure of Brendon
BAZZ McCullum. Guptill, Munro, Anderson, Ronchi provide the fire-power and Williamson
provides the anchor in case of a collapse. Bowlers on the other hand are
looking strong with Southee-Bolt, Milne and McCleanaghan with McCullum, Sodhi
and Santner turning up for some spin in the pace majority attack. They have an experienced
campaigner in Ross Taylor and the Veteran Elliott who can give the experienced
hand in need. They have only 1 ICC trophy (Champions Trophy 2000) in their
cabinet and would look to add more to it.
ENGLAND:
Eoin Morgan (capt.);
Moeen Ali; Sam Billings; Jos Buttler; Liam Dawson; Steven Finn; Alex Hales;
Chris Jordan; Adil Rashid; Joe Root; Jason Roy; Ben Stokes; Reece Topley; James
Vince and David Willey.
The Poms. Inventors of the game have just 1 trophy in
their cabinet which is the same that they are playing for. The 2010 champions
have been a regular finalists in the 50 overs affair before and they have not
done well in this format apart from the 2010 edition…and the heroes of that
edition KP, Wright and not even in the radar of the selectors even though they
are in good knick. Most players are relatively new to the international arena
with Vince, Willley, Dawson, Billings and Roy not known by all in the other
camps. They need to use this element of surprise but will it work for them? We should
just wait and watch. On the other hand, they also have seasoned players like
Morgan, Ali, Hales, Finn and Stokes who can win matches for them. England’s
case, we need to wait and watch for their performance to see how far they go in
the campaign.
SRILANKA:
Lasith
Malinga (capt.); Dushmantha Chameera; Dinesh Chandimal; Niroshan Dickwella;
Tillakaratne Dilshan; Rangana Herath; Shehan Jayasuriya; Chamara Kapugedera;
Nuwan Kulasekara; Angelo Mathews; Thisara Perera; Sachithra Senanayake; Dasun
Shanaka; Milinda Siriwardana and Jeffrey Vandersay.
The Defending champions. Without
the veterans Sangakkara and Jayawardene, their batting looks a level lower than
its formidable self. But they can see that the bowling core which formed the
2014 squad remains almost the same. Malinga, Kulasekara, Perera, Mathews,
Herath are all the bowlers core who had won it for them last time. The batting
mostly now depends on the experienced Dilshan, Mathews and Chandimal. Their recent
form has also been not that good winning 2 of their last 7 games. How the
manage to defend the title with the transitional squad is upto them and it
would be great if they pulled it off as so far no team has defended its title
in the tournament history.
PAKISTAN:
Shahid
Afridi (capt.); Anwar Ali; Imad Wasim; Khalid Latif; Khurram Manzoor; Mohammad
Amir; Mohammad Hafeez; Mohammad Irfan; Mohammad Nawaz; Mohammad Sami; Sarfaraz
Ahmed; Sharjeel Khan; Shoaib Malik; Umar Akmal and Wahab Riaz.
The Green Army. If you say in a
crowd gathering that cricket is now becoming a batsman’s game, you just hoped
you didn’t say that coz they reply with their bowling. Invariably the best
bowling pack of the tournament, Pakistan are happy reaping benefits on the
return of Md. Amir to international cricket which was evident from the Asia Cup
where even on flat pitches he made the White Kookaburra talk. Alongside Amir
now they have Riaz, Sami, Afridi and Irfan who can almost demolish any batting
line-up. Provided with needed help from their batters, they can win the World
Cup and show the world, Bowlers can dictate the matches.
AUSTRALIA:
Steve
Smith (capt.); Ashton Agar; Nathan Coulter-Nile; James Faulkner; Aaron Finch;
John Hastings; Josh Hazlewood; Usman Khawaja; Mitchell Marsh; Glenn Maxwell;
Peter Nevill; Andrew Tye; David Warner; Shane Watson and Adam Zampa.
Attendance at the Australian trophy
cabinet…ICC 50-over World Cup (Check), Champions Trophy (Check), ICC Test
Championship Mace (Check), ICC ODI Championship Mace (Check), ICC WT20 Cup???
Now where is this guy??? The Kangaroos ruling the cricket world have until now
not set their hands on the T20 World Cup. Can they break that jinx and go more
than a final appearance and 2 semi-final appearances??? With Warner, Watson,
Finch, Maxwell, Smith, Marsh and Khawaja, any target and their batsmen once
settled will be just like playing EA Cricket to them. Their bowlers will have
to do their job in the absence of their spearhead Mitchell Starc and the
spinners Zampa and Agar will just have to do it on their first time in India.
These are the top 8 teams which
gained direct entry virtue of their rankings and they bottom 8 who play the
qualifiers comprise of Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Netherlands, Oman, Afghanistan,
Hong-Kong and Scotland where Hong-Kong, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Scotland go
for one spot and Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands and Oman go for the other.
While one would be decided mostly by the ZIM-AFG encounter, the other is a
group of death as they say in Football…
Which 2 goes from the bottom 8??? Which 4 goes from
the next 10??? From there who plays the summit clash in Kolkata and who lifts
the trophy on the night of 3rd April?? Wait until then when the
event starts tomorrow…
S.T. Guha Karthikeyan
