Exciting cricket
The second Twenty20 World Cup began in England with the opening ceremony taking place at the Lord's in London - the home of cricket - on 05/06/09. It is apt that the country which invented the "gentleman's game", including the exciting 20-over format known as Twenty20, would host this tournament. If the last T20 World Cup, hosted by South Africa, culminating in the nail-biting final between the Asian powerhouses India and Pakistan, is anything to go by, this year's event also promises to be a spectacular one. The Twenty20 format of the game has evolved rapidly since the inaugural World Cup and is now the fastest growing sporting competition in the world. The success of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has provided great publicity regarding this sport, however, it could well be argued that the increasing popularity of T20 is at the expense of the 50-over version of the ODI game or the traditional five-day Test matches, rather than other competing sports.
The inaugural T20 World Cup Champions India look to be the team to watch in this year's competition as well. India have considerable experience of this format as a result of IPL and their success in South Africa makes them favourites to retain this trophy. However, T20 is undoubtedly the most unpredictable format of cricket and there is better chance for "smaller" nations to upset the more established ones than is possible in the other two versions of the game. India, led by the impressive Mahendra Dhoni, have arguably the most match-winners than any other squad competing in the T20 World Cup. Bangladesh are expected for the first time to at least qualify for the Super8s (which they did in the previous T20 World Cup by knocking out West Indies) and anything less than that would be considered a huge failure, as their opponents in their Group are Ireland (who the South Asian nation should beat as a Test playing nation) and India. It should be interesting to see how they cope with this pressure, but I expect them to beat Ireland (although they should not underestimate the plucky Irish) and if they have momentum behind them they are certainly capable of surprising a few in the Super 8s, especially with Sakib Al-Hasan, officially the world's best all-rounder, in their team.
The other main contender for the T20 World Cup has to be South Africa, although they have a reputation of choking in close matches and have never won any World Cup competition. They have one of the best squads suited for the T20 format and several of their players are star players of the Twenty20 (domestic) Cup in England. The Group of Death is Group C where Australia, Sri Lanka and West Indies will be competing for two places for the Super8s. West Indies are the 3rd seeded team in this group and are not expected to qualify to Super 8s according to the ICC-ODI Rankings (where they are the 8th best team in the world) and they lost both the Test and ODI series comprehensively against England last month. I still, however, feel that they are the "dark horses" for this tournament along with New Zealand. If the West Indies qualify to Super8s and their inspirational captain Chris Gayle has a good tournament they will most probably go all the way. The hosts England will most likely not have a great tournament as they will be distracted from the Ashes series which begins in July and are heavily dependent on Andrew Flintoff (who will miss the tournament because of an injury) and Kevin Pietersen (who was also injured for the home series against West Indies and might well be rested for the Ashes).
It promises to be a fascinating tournament and England is most certainly the place to be in this summer for cricket lovers with the Twenty20 World Cup taking place in June and the small matter of the Ashes series in July and August.
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