ICC World T20 favourites

Tournament: ICC World T20 (18 Sept- 7 Oct 2012)

Venue: Sri Lanka

As the ICC World T20 approaches, people are assigning their views about this cup.

A huge debate around the world is happening as to who is the favourite to win the championship. According to Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar, West Indies are HOT favourites to win the Championship. As we see that the WI batting order extends till the 9th or 10th number and 1 or 2 bowlers. If we see the batting line-up clearly, WI have many bowlers in the top order as well including Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy, Dwayne Smith, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell. They also have a young spin talent Sunil Narine who has emerged a lot in the past few months. What more can you expect from this side?

The other favourite is The Indian Team, which has the likes of Virat Kohli, Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni. As compared to the other teams, this team is also well balanced. If the batting part is concerned, Virat Kohli has been India’s powerhouse for the past 2 years along with Suresh Raina, who is the only Indian to have a century in all 3 formats of the game. India have a great bowling line-up as well, since it has a spinner like Ravichandran Ashwin and seamers like Irfan Pathan and Zaheer Khan. All players are outstanding and as far as Rohit Sharma is concerned, he is also back in form in the 2 warm-up Games and is giving the critics a piece of his mind.

The South African side and the English side are also considered to be favourites as SA batting line-up is excellent due to form of players like Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and the big hitter Albie Morkel. Their bowling line up is also up to the mark as Dale Steyn is a great bowler in this format, along with spinner John Botha who can bat as well. The English side this time do not have their best middle order batsman Kevin Pietersen due to his issues with the ECB. Bowling shall be good as their captain Stuart Broad is confident about his and other bowler’s performance. Their key bowler should be Graeme Swann, as he is in tremendous form.

As Pakistan have beaten India today, their confidence should be sky high. Kamran Akmal, one of Pakistan’s experienced batsmen, notched up 92 off just 50 balls along with Shoaib Malik, who scored 37 off just 18 balls. I guess this where a player’s experience comes into play. Bowlers like Saeed Ajmal and Umar Gul are to look out for. Shahid Afridi is not considered as a key player for this series as his form is not up to the mark.

But, the fact is the all time favourite team Australia is not considered to be a favourite because of its poor performances in T20 against each team in the past year. Australia, this time, have only 4-5 experienced players like are Shane Watson, David Warner, Hussey brothers and Brad Hogg. The bowlers to keep an eye on are Brad Hogg and Ben Hilfenhaus. This Australian side is completely new to this format.

Ireland have caused 2 upsets already in the warm-up matches, defeating Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Ireland looks focused like never before. I guess this is because they are frustrated as they will not be allowed to be part of the ICC World Cup 2015. Will they make an upset in the league matches?

ICC World T20 should be a great tournament as this is the most open T20 World Cup ever.