T20 winner is anyone's guess
Brad Morgan
10 September 2007
When the inaugural Twenty20 World Championships kick off on 11 September, it is anybody's guess as to who the winners of the event will be. That is the opinion of England captain Paul Collingwood.
And Australian fast bowler Brett Lee, surprisingly, hasn't picked his team as the tournament favourites. That tells you just how much mystery surrounds the exciting short form of the game.
Twenty20 cricket – 20 overs per side - is a relatively new form of the game at international level. What makes it interesting is that many countries are still figuring out what works and what doesn't work in this format. As a result, many different ways of approaching the game have taken root in different places.
It's not only the tactical approach that differs, but other factors, such as the types of pitches played upon have meant diverse methods have been adopted.
Adapting tactics
The big question is which country is
going to most successfully adapt their tactics to South Africa's pitches and then deliver the performances needed to become the first holders of the Twenty20 World Championships title.
Australian fast bowler Lee told South African journalists last week that the hosts are probably the favourites because of their home ground advantage, and because they are relatively experienced at the 20 over per side game.
He downplayed Australia's chances, citing their lack of experience.
If experience is what it is about, then England enjoys an advantage over the other competing nations. Twenty20 cricket has been played in England longer than anywhere else, but English skipper Paul Collingwood finds he has as many questions as answers about the upcoming tournament.
The influence of spinners
One of the main questions, he says, is whether or not his spinners are going to be as effective as they are in the format in England. It's a question that
will only be answered after the tournament, reckons Collingwood.
If spinners do play a big role in the success of teams, then one would logically look to the team from Asia to fair well because pitches there are conducive to that kind of bowling. The Asian teams, however, lack experience.
Just recently, too, the best spinner in the game, Muttiah Muralitharan was withdrawn from Sri Lanka's squad because of injury. So, scratch his powerful influence from the tournament.
While the Asian countries play a massive amount of limited overs cricket (50 overs), none of India, Pakistan, or Sri Lanka has yet hosted an international Twenty20 match. That's an astounding fact and it shows just how unpredictable their performances will be in South Africa.
Sri Lanka, runner-up to Australia at the World Cup in the West Indies, has played only three Twenty20 internationals, Pakistan has played two, and India and Bangladesh one each.
Opening
batsmen
New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori, addressing the media after the Black Caps arrived in South Africa, suggested that a team's success in Twenty20 cricket depends to a large degree on its opening batsmen.
He reckons it is vital that the openers lay a good platform for the batsmen to follow. He even went so far as to suggest that if his team found itself forced to bat lower down than number five in the order, it would probably be in trouble.
Vettori feels good bowlers will always make an impact but, he points out, allowed to bowl only four overs each, their opportunities to influence a match are more limited than those of a batsman.
Specialists
Interestingly, England, the most experienced of all the teams, has opted to choose some Twenty20 specialists. It was Australia that first introduced the idea of test and limited overs international specialists, now that idea has filtered down to the 20 over a side
game.
South Africa's captain Graeme Smith feels the winners will come from a team that displays imagination and uses unorthodox players who will emerge as match-winners during the course of the tournament.
Following the retirement of a number of big stars after the World Cup in the Caribbean, he is expecting a new generation of stars to emerge, starting with the Twenty20 World Championships.
So, there you have it: no clear-cut favourites, no captains willing to commit the label of "favourites" on their teams. No idea!
Time to win
South African coach Mickey Arthur did, at least, say it is time the Proteas won a major ICC event.
Smith says he and his team are looking forward to the Twenty20 World Championships and to playing in front of the home fans.
He says the players loving playing on home soil and the tournament provides a great opportunity for South Africa and its people to showcase the country ahead of the Fifa
World Cup in 2010.
A survey conducted late in 2006 revealed that cricket is the only sport in South Africa that features in the top three most popular sports across all race groups.
In overall popularity, it is second only to soccer, so Smith's assertion that the Twenty20 World Championships provides a great opportunity to showcase South Africa before the 2010 World Cup is surely right on the mark.
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