The ICC T-20 World Cup has come to an end with the tournament’s best two teams meeting in the grand final in Barbados. India and South Africa were deserved finalists having remained unbeaten in the competition.
This tournament produced several new heroes while some famous names had disappointing outings. There were many upsets with pre-tournament favourites being knocked out and newcomers making it a memorable campaign. The glorious uncertainties of cricket were evident in the sport’s showpiece event.
Two former champions Pakistan and Sri Lanka failed to make it to the second round. Unfancied sides like USA and Bangladesh ended their campaign. Interestingly both those decisive games took place in Dallas. New Zealand, a side very consistent in ICC events, lost to Afghanistan and were knocked out.
The Afghans were the team to watch. Most neutrals were rooting for them and what a campaign they had. New Zealand isn’t the only team they knocked out. They sealed Australia’s fate too.
Australia play like professionals and plan like professionals. It was bizarre to see them handing the T-20 captaincy to Mitchell Marsh when there was already a proven leader in Pat Cummins, who had won a World Cup only last year.
If Cummins is good enough to be picked in the T-20 squad, surely he should be leading the side as well. As for Marsh, a fabulous player, he is half the time injured and played this tournament only as a batter. He was a flop with the bat managing only 125 runs in seven innings with a strike rate of 116. Very disappointing for a number three batter. If Marsh wasn’t the captain, he would have been dropped from the side halfway through the tournament. Cummins had a dream tournament picking up back-to-back hat-tricks. Australia certainly missed a trick.
Afghanistan is now a force to be reckoned with in cricket. It’s just a matter of time before they go on to win an ICC event.Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rashid Khan are world class players and had a big impact in the competition. But the player to impress most was Fazalhaq Farooqi, who was a sensation with his left-arm swing bowling. Naveen-ul-Haq was superb in the death overs holding his nerve in tight situations.
What impressive campaigns like this means is that Afghanistan will get more opportunities to play against leading cricket playing nations and that’s only going to improve their cricket. Obviously, their share of prize money is much more than what some of the other former champions took home.
United States did well to reach the second round but lacked skill to challenge stronger teams in the Super Eights. But what this means is more international cricket in the US.
This tournament was further proof that in the World Cup we should have more teams. The current format for the 50 over World Cup where only ten teams compete is ridiculous.Thankfully we will have 14 teams in the next event in Africa.
Since this was the first mega cricket event in the US, the organizers would have been better off sticking to one venue. Playing at three venues meant for some teams it was a logistics nightmare with long flights.
Also, the pitches in US were a disappointment. T-20 cricket is high scoring encounters filled with entertainment. Yes, low scoring thrillers have their own entertainment but ICC events are played on belters and teams prepare accordingly.
Florida was a huge flop. The venue hosted four games and three of those games were abandoned. Two games were affected by rain and floods but for the third game it didn’t rain for 36 hours in Florida but still had to be called off due to a muddy outfield. This is why in Sri Lanka the ground staff make sure they cover the entire ground so that play can get underway in less than 90 minutes after it stops raining.
Six Caribbean venues hosted games. They put on a grand show. Interesting how Jamaica missed out. One of the strongholds of West Indian cricket, Jamaica hosted the 2007 World Cup semi-final and it was quite a spectacle.
The choice of semi-finals venues was an interesting one. Guyana and Trinidad got a chance to host those games and both pitches proved to be slow. Trinidad was not a sporting pitch at all and you would expect better surfaces for games like semi-finals.
Not all teams had these demanding schedules. Take a look at England. They played their first round and super eight stage matches at three venues – Barbados, Antigua and St. Lucia. Some teams played their first-round games in four different venues. That’s not cricket.
All in all the tournament was a resounding success. Cricket is spreading fast and the game is being embraced by new fans.
