Global T20 Canada: All you need to know about Vancouver Knights

Strengths

The three most destructive Caribbean cricketers uniting together can lead only to carnage. It is not just the trio of Chris Gayle, fellow opener Evil Lewis and Andre Russell who can set stage on fire, the prominent markings of the layout of the Knights seem to be vested in the fact that they have picked format specialists.

Many believed that the Universe Boss, aged 38, was done as a batsman and all of a sudden he served dashing replies in the IPL, famously hitting SunRisers Hyderabad's Rashid Khan all over the park en-route to a mind-boggling 21st century in a format, where achieving the feat once or twice in career seems remarkable.

To add to that, Tim Southee is a very good operator in this format, he can land yorkers with special spite for toes and can swing the ball when new to trouble the openers. Oh, and he can tonk it out of the park if need be. Chadwick Walton, behind the wickets and at the top order, is another specialist who understands and responds to the specific demands of the format.

Weaknesses

While strong on specialists, the Knights seem to have gotten their team structure wrong. Babar Hayat, howsoever talented, has no notable company in the middle order. Should they run into an on-song pair of opening fast bowlers on any day, proceedings will turn into a slippery slide of hopelessness as there is no presence customized to bat in the intermediate stages of the innings.

After a decade and a half of T20 cricket, teams ought to have realized that the ideology of starting and finishing the innings with a bang is no more relevant than outdated stereotypes. The middle phase is the most crucial part as this is where teams often switch to slow accumulation modes rather than keeping up the intensity to set up a platform for the finish.