Balanced India favourites for World T20
The players crucial to success in T20 are a top three — all capable of a quick-fire but substantial score, a new ball bowler who takes wickets at both ends of an innings, a spinner who buys wickets in the middle overs, finishing specialists with both bat and ball and fielders who excel in catching, saving runs and hitting the stumps.
The aforementioned generally perform the starring roles and then you have the support players; the middle-order hitters who can deliver an over or two and field like demons, tidy bowlers who specialise in economy and last but by no means least, a competent keeper who can bat. It’s more specialised than choosing the best five batsmen and the four top bowlers the best keeper and a capable
In just nine years since the inaugural World T20 tournament, the importance of six hitting has expanded. It’ll play a prominent part in the 2016 tournament, where Indian pitches can be flat and boundaries short.
NEED FOR BIG-HITTERS Forget for a moment the debate over bats improving and boundaries shrinking. In the prevailing circumstances it makes sense to select boundary clearing batsmen; if you hit the ball in the air, better it lands in the stands than stays within the playing field.
So who are the teams with the strongest array of the necessary components to win the upcoming World T20 tournament?
For once, all of the Big Three off the field rate highly on the field, as England has finally got its short form cricket together. India and Australia are perennial favourites entering a World tournament and joining that trio are South Africa with the usual proviso — until they reach the knockout stages without the dynamic stroke play of Brendan Mccullum, have serious fire power and I would’ve had the West Indies on the list if it wasn’t for the on-going civil war between players and administrators.
Pakistan’s unpredictability, which used to be a strong point, has now become a weakness called inconsistency. As for Sri Lanka, the retirement of two great stalwarts in Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jaywardene is too much to overcome.
The four most likely to qualify for the semi-finals are England and South Africa from group 1 and India and Australia from the second group. The side best placed to upset those qualifiers is New es with India and then Australia compelling.
THEIR WEAKNESS IS THE LACK OF LATE-ORDER BIG-HITTING BUT THEY MAKE THIS IRRELEVANT VIA BIG SCORES FROM THEIR TOP-ORDER
DHONI THE FINISHER
Of the top four candidates, India are slight favourites because of their allround ability and knowl edge of playing at home. Their one weakness is the lack of late-order big-hitting but they usually render this irrelevant via big scores from their top-order batsmen and the finishing capabilities of skipper MS Dhoni.
Australia will sorely miss the wicket-taking knack of Mitchell Starc and they still need to prove they can play good spin bowling in India. Nevertheless, they have a power-laden batting line-up and plenty of quality allrounders.
England will also miss the firepower of the injured Steven Finn and they’ve had their hiccups against quality spin. However they are now playing with greater freedom and if Joe Root and Eoin Morgan combine well with the prodigious hitting of Ben Stokes and Josh Buttler their bowlers will