Barely after 2 weeks of IPL; we are greeted with another T20 extravaganza – T20 World Cup where Men in Blue are the defending champs; not every year it happens when we are defending an ICC trophy. Here we would not have city’s battling but the countries and the loyalties would change seats as we supported once Andrew Symonds for Deccan chargers…..oops did I take the wrong name here…
IPL this season did give us both pleasant & rude surprises…..the first one being Deccan Chargers lifting up the trophy and rude one being KKR being leaving the tournament with humiliation…of course they retained some pride by making it sure that Shane Warne’s team wasn’t in the finals….maybe that’s the way to return them the favor to what happened in Super over 3 weeks back from that match. Another pleasant surprise was to see jumbo going full blow and doing the things he does the best; that’s to bowl straight and hit the target.
2 weeks from their and we are here again for another battle in the same format this time it would countries battling out to win the ICC trophy. This is the event where everyone has their own favorites of winning the title. Of course Defending champs are again the favorites as well. The first week of the ICC World T20 was a humbling experience for some, a scary one for others and a frustrating one for a couple of teams hoping to break into the big league. Reputations have counted for little, as happens in the younger, more irreverent world of youth, and happily we are discovering that there is a learning curve to this new version as well. But to my mind no body is a favorite here every team has equal opportunity to create an upset which we all saw when determined Dutch took on overconfident England and gave them worst beating of their history. The most intimidating teams like Australia was shown door by lesser confident West Indies who had abysmal series against England early this summer.
Talking about the Aussies I don’t know if Symonds was shown door due to ethics and misbehavior or may be was he pray to Team politics after all drinking a bear with team mates isn’t any sin. Yeah Symmo does have series of unforgettable events both on and off field. But was this event as serious as they have been in the past. But I am sure is that Aussies would miss him dearly in all the forms of the game and not just T20 as we all saw how they did and Ponting accepting the fact. I think Cricket Australia is a hypocrite for the simple reason that their sponsors are Alcohol manufacturers and they don’t mind taking money from them but they do if any of the team members has a drink or so. Darren Lehmann would with the agree with the fact that How big an asset is Symonds to the team.
During the IPL & 1 week into the big extravaganza we have all learned that Spin is the factor which could make or break the day for any particular team; we have seen Pragyan Ojha & Bhaaji doing their bit while Mendis & Murli are their scaring best with Australia packing bags to Leicester after their match with South Asian lions. Perhaps Spin being the most effective factor was not understood by Ponting & Neilson as Nathan Hauritz didn’t scare anybody or so did Bret Lee. Wasn’t he the bowler who was so effective in the later part of the IPL but looked a bit lost when ball started being caught outside the stadium by the tress passer instead the guys in Yellow within the stadium.
I must confess I find Pakistan’s cricket bewildering too. You would have thought that the T20 format was tailor-made for their style of play and into the second week we might well discover that to be the case. But they need a strong batsman at the top of the order and they need to dust Sohail Tanvir to rediscover the gem in their midst. If a side can keep Tanvir on the bench it must be, by some distance, the best bowling side in the tournament. Pakistan isn’t! And unless Afridi rediscovers the real reason batsmen take a bat out with them, they might find their balance affected rather badly.
Newzealand has their own problems with long list injured players on the trip and they have 11 legs fit out of the whole squad who is either hospitalized or nursing a shoulder or hamstring injury. But you can never discount Black caps as they love the tag of under dogs and who knows they might just sneak in with couple of good match performance and we may very well find our next champs for this year.
And unfortunately - Bangladesh are confirming an increasingly popular view that they are making absolutely no progress at all. There is indisputable ability in that side but they have made a habit of playing below potential to the extent that one can question the assumptions which were made before giving them the test status. They need someone like Shane Warne who can make people believe in their ability, sometimes convinces them of ability where its existence may be in doubt!
I still believe India is the batting side of the tournament, with South Africa just there, but there is still a dependence on a good start. But this does not change my view of marking favorite tag on one particular team; on their day a motivated Ireland can be handful for team like South Africa. That’s why we call T20 game of upset for the cricketer with right identity on your chest.
