Former Indian leg-spinner Piyush Chawla has backed India, South Africa, Australia and the West Indies to reach the semifinals of the T20 World Cup 2026. India are in red-hot form as they recently defeated New Zealand by 4-1 in a five-match series at home.

Earlier, India won the T20I series against England, Australia and South Africa. Since the start of 2025, India has lost only four T20Is and they would look to carry the good show in the upcoming T20I showpiece.

On the other hand, South Africa are also in good form. The Proteas recently registered a 2-1 series win against the West Indies while playing at home.

Australia suffered a 3-0 series loss against Pakistan but didn’t play with their full-strength team.

“India, that goes without saying. Australia. One team that is playing very well is South Africa. One team for me who are dark horses but can come from behind and have complete strength to do well are the West Indies,” Piyush Chawla said in a video on Manvinder Bisla’s Instagram handle.

On the other hand, Chawla backed Abhishek Sharma to be India’s highest run-getter in the upcoming World Cup. Sharma recently scored 182 runs in five games against the Kiwis at an average of 45.50 and a blistering strike rate of 249.31. The left-hander returned with impressive scores of 84 runs off just 35 balls in the series opener whereas he smashed 68 runs off just 20 balls in the third game.

Former MI spinner Chawla also backed Varun Chakravarthy to be India’s leading wicket-taker in the tournament. The mystery spinner recently scalped four wickets in three games against the Blackcaps.

India will begin their T20 World Cup campaign against the USA on February 7.