The whole country is celebrating the six medals won by the Indian contingent at London Olympics and they have a month’s time to celebrate the achievement of the athletes because in September the focus will shift to Sri Lanka where the T20 World Cup will take place.
Nothing can beat the following that our cricketers get whenever they play especially when it is a world’s event. T20 cricket is the most followed and the most loved format nowadays and the World Cup is sure to catch the attention of the cricket plating nations.
The question that everyone is asking is whether India can repeat what they did 2007 in South Africa where they won the inaugural edition of this extravaganza. MS Dhoni’s men surprised everyone by winning the cup. The tournament saw some of the best action and produced a lot of heroes for the Indian team.
But in the last two editions of the T20 World Cup, India has done very badly. In both the occasion India failed to go past the group stages and played some ordinary cricket. The last two World Cups were played in England and then in West Indies and one both the occasion bowlers from the opponent teams bowled a lot of short deliveries which Indian batsmen failed to negotiate. Indian batsmen looked helpless on bouncy wickets and that was the main reason of India’s debacle.
This time around the world Cup will be played in the more familiar conditions. The tournament is in Sri Lanka and Indians are masters when it comes to play in slow and low pitches. Their recent exploits against Sri Lanka shows that India will be one of the front-runners to lift the trophy for the second time.
Indian team looks settled and have got players who can win the match single-handedly. The most followed player in this tournament will be Yuvraj Singh who battled his way through cancer to come back in the team. He was the man of the series when India won the inaugural World Cup and every team will be aware of the threat he possesses. Another surprise inclusion in the team is Harbhajan Singh.
Harbhajan has been out of action for around a year and has done almost nothing to be selected. But it looks like that selector’s wants to have those players in the team who knows the pressure of playing in big tournaments.
Indian batting line-up is arguably the most dangerous when it comes to playing in these conditions. All the batsmen in the line-up are capable of changing the match on its head. From Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir to Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni are all genuine match winners and have delivered in crunch situation.
The biggest problem that India will face is their bowling. Indian bowling is very weak and barring Zaheer Khan, no bowler can be trusted to deliver the goods whenever it is needed. Irfan Pathan bowled well against Sri Lanka, but one should not forget that he was bowling against a second string Sri Lankan batting. Umesh yadav has been far too expensive whenever he has played. Harbhajan is coming on the back off a long break and will be low on confidence and R Ashwin hasn’t been much effective against teams other than Sri Lanka.
Even with the problems that Dhoni has in the bowling department, his team will start as one of the favorites and it will not be a surprise if this man ends up lifting the World Cup for the third time.
Indian team for T20 World Cup:
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Gautam Gambhir (vice-captain), Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, Rohit Sharma, Irfan Pathan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Zaheer Khan, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Dinda.
By Indian Sports News Network
