Another World Cup? Yes, seven months after Australia were crowned winners of the 50-over World Cup in India, 20 teams will contest for the 2024 T20 World Cup in the USA and the Caribbean from June 2.
England are defending T20 World Cup champions, and even though my prediction for them at the 2023 ODI World Cup went horribly wrong – they lost six of their first seven matches and exited in the group stage – I reckon they are a stronger bet in the shortest format. Ben Stokes is not around this time, after delivering clutch innings for England when they won the ODI World Cup in 2019 and the T20 World title in 2022, but the squad boasts of several match-winners.
Key to how Jos Buttler’s team fares at this World Cup will be the success of their big hitters. They have a squad packed with dynamite and the likely top six of Buttler, Phil Salt, Will Jacks, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone is capable of doing plenty of damage. Add on the all-round skills of Moeen Ali, the vice-captain, and the Player of the Tournament and Player of the Final at the 2022 T20 World Cup, Sam Curran, and you see immense depth.
England’s bowling is perceived as the weak link, but when you have a multiple World Cup winner and the No 1 ranked T20I bowler in Adil Rashid, you aren’t too badly placed. Rashid knows the conditions and has heaps of experience, and being Buttler’s go-to man underlines his status in the T20 game. Jofra Archer is back, and if he and Mark Wood stay fit, then England have two X-factor fast bowlers. Reece Topley and Chris Jordan add to the experience.
My second semi-finalist team is West Indies, co-hosts of the 2024 T20 World Cup. They have the home advantage, having won 21 of 39 T20Is at home over the last three years while winning six of ten bilateral series. These include two wins over England in 2021-22 and 2023-24 and one each over Australia (2021), Bangladesh (2022), India (2023) and South Africa last week, who were blanked 3-0.
Clearly, West Indies know what to do in home conditions and even though they are erratic and unpredictable, Rovman Powell’s team has the right balance to take them into the final four. Their squad boasts a toxic blend of six-hitters and match-winning allrounders, the fourth-highest wicket-taker in all T20s this year, Obed McCoy, and a trio of handy spinners. If the pitches in the Caribbean play the way I expect them to, the likes of left-arm spinner Akeal Hossain – who has 31 wickets in T20 cricket in 2024 at an economy of 7.20 – Gudakesh Motie – the Player of the Series in the recent win over South Africa – and Roston Chase could be a handful. And yes, there are pacers in this squad who have often proven expensive, but they are all wicket-takers as opposed to containing bowlers, which is very effective in T20 cricket.
A cursory glance at the batting in this West Indies squad says it all. Powell, Johnson Charles, Shimron Hetmyer, Brandon Kings, Nicholas Pooran, Andre Russell, Sherfane Rutherford and Romario Shepherd are all clinical six-hitters which is just what T20 cricket has become about. So, maybe not everyone’s pick for a place in the T20 World Cup final four, but I believe that West Indies are genuine semi-final contenders if they play to potential.
Now, just because it is Australia, who are the most successful cricket team of all time when it comes to winning titles, I must name them in my predicted final four. They won the T20 World Cup in 2021 when next to nobody gave them a chance, and in 2023 lifted the ICC World Test Championship trophy as well as the 50-over World Cup.
Looking at the way Mitchell Starc bowled in the IPL playoffs for winners Kolkata Knight Riders, as well as how Pat Cummins transformed Sunrisers Hyderabad from no-hopers to finalists, and how Travis Head helped redefine the opener’s role in T20s over the past seven weeks, you just get the sense, once again, that Australians operate on a different level in tournaments.
Australia’s T20 World Cup squad has all bases covered. The batting is solid, the allrounders are utility, the pace attack is excellent, and the spinners are wicket-takers. Though I feel that a young batting sensation like Jake Fraser-McGurk should have been picked in the squad of 15, I understand why the Australia selectors kept faith in David Warner, 37, despite his poor run in IPL 2024. Warner is Australia’s second-highest run-getter in T20Is and has proven himself to be a champion opener, after all.
Speaking of champions, who better than Head when it comes to delivering in ICC tournament finals? The rejuvenated opener scored a match-shifting century on day one of the 2023 WTC final against India, and six months later smashed a match-clinching hundred versus the same team in the ODI World Cup final. Yes, Head’s form nosedived in the recent IPL playoffs after he finished the league stage with 567 runs while striking at 192, but he remains a player who opponents will fear.
If Australia’s squad plays to potential, reaching the semi-finals is no big deal for this lot. On paper, they have the hitters to put up big scores and finish off chases, as well as the bowling to shut down big-hittig teams, which could prove the difference when it comes to the big prize in the Caribbean.
And now, for my fourth and final prediction. I deliberated between South Africa and India, and after weighing up the possibility of what the former can do given their superb batting resources, I went with Rohit Sharma’s team. It is a decision based more on what could happen – particularly if spin has as big a role to play as I suspect it will – as opposed to what India has done in the T20 format on the biggest stage, irrespective of their No 1 ranking.
In 2022, Rohit and Virat Kohli spoke of being aggressive in the T20I format, but that aggression was missing in the Asia Cup and World Cup which were played back-to-back in the UAE and then Australia. India the second worst scoring rate in the Powerplay during the T20 World Cup, and their bowling lacked the desired wicket-taking factor.
The current squad has several players out of form, but if the entire unit clicks then I believe India can make it to the semi-finals. But to win the World Cup, this team will have to remove the fear of failure. They cannot afford a repeat of 2022, when from the captain down the belief was that totals of 180 were defendable. The T20 game has moved on faster than India anticipated, and for years they have been playing catchup despite having the most lucrative T20 franchise, the IPL, at their disposal. If India can shed the cloak of fear and play bold cricket, they might just surprise a few teams at the World Cup.
