2012 ICC T20 World Cup: Preview

 

The ICC T20 World Cup is starting next week in Sri Lanka. It promises to be exciting and filled with surprise results. Here are my predictions followed by the tournament schedule.

The Favourites

England – With or without Kevin Pietersen they are still the defending champions and the Number 1 ranked T20 side so you have to make them favourites. They have a very young side led by Stuart Broad. Batsmen like Alex Hales, Joss Buttler and Jonny Bairstow are still relatively unknown in the cricketing world. They might struggle against spin though.

Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni

 

India – The IPL gives them a huge pool of T20 talent to choose from.  The return of big-hitting Yuvraj Singh from cancer is a huge boost to the team. They still have the explosive World cup winning batsmen like Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni, Raina and Kohli. The conditions should suit India very nicely as they recently toured Sri Lanka. Oh I almost forgot! They are the current 50-over World cup champs and won the 1^st T20 World Cup ever held.

Sri Lanka – The hosts. This alone gives them a huge advantage on everyone else in the competition. What counts against them though is that no host country has won this cup or even reached the final. Their team still has the experience of Jayawardena and Sangakkara to guide them. They also have some young players like Chandimal and Thirimanne in the side. Captain: Mahela Jayawardena



Chris Gayle
 

 

West Indies – The dark horses. Chris Gayle! Chris Gayle! Chris Gayle! His return adds 50% to the team effort. If he has a good tournament then expects West Indies to reach the last 4. They also have the likes of Pollard, Narine,  Dwayne Bravo and Marlon Samuels who can be match winners on their own. They are my pick to win the whole thing. Captain: Darren Sammy

 

 

The Surprise Packages

Pakistan – Their players do not play IPL cricket, they also do not play international games in their own country. They have a team capable of beating everyone at this tournament and winning it. The only question is do they want to? They have a very experience squad who have played in many ICC World Cup events before. Imran Nazir, Abdur Razzaq and Shahid Afridi seem to have been around forever. They also have a trump card in spinner Saeed Ajmal. I do not see them reaching Super 8s  Captain: Mohammed Hafeez

South Africa – They have new captain in AB de Villiers. He will feel the pressure of leading this team at a big event for the 1^st time. A team that is quietly confident of doing well. Their main goal is the 2015 World Cup. That is their main focus. They have a balanced bowling attack with lots of spinners to complement the fire from Steyn and Morkel. They will crash out in the Super 8s. It is too early to expect the Kirsten experiment to bear fruits.

Hashim Amla

 I do not see Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh doing anything special during this T20 World Cup. I just hope the rain stays away. Click here to see tournament schedule and SA times.

Reasons not to miss 2012-13 PSL season

1. Can Orlando Pirates win yet another treble?
The past 2 seasons they have dominated South African football by winning 6 major Cups. The only key player that has left is striker Tokelo Rantie. They have added Zambian striker Collins Mbesuma to their ammunition. Augusto Palacios is already under pressure from fans.

2. Battle for top goalscorer award
Last season Siyabonga Nomvethe took this award with his 20 goals. Can he do it again? The likes of Benni McCarthy, Edward Manqele and Majoro will be challenging for this award.

Edward Manqele is the new striker at Sundowns

3. Q-Innovation
It will be interesting to see which teams win the 4 Quarters. Will it be the same team winning them? Can one of the smaller less fancied teams turn the tables and win one of the Quarters?

4. Stuart Baxter new Chiefs
Following a horrible season last season where they failed to win any silverware, can Stuart Baxter bring back some pride to the team? How will the new signings (Nkhatha, Nkosi) perform?

Jessica Motaung trying to bring back the glory days

5. Moroka Swallows - Life after Gordon Igesund
They have never won the league before and last season they came within 2 points of being crowned as league champions. How will they survive without the man who took them that close?

6. PSL newcomers - Will they sink or swim?
We have been waiting for a very long-time to see Pretoria University playing in the PSL. Finally they have arrived. Can they live up to the expectations or will they be fighting relegation? Chippa United are also in unfamiliar territory. Survival will be the goal for these 2 newcomers.

Proteas : Undisputed Number 1!

On Monday we witnessed South Africa jump ahead of England in the rankings after their 51-run win at the home of cricket Lord's.

What makes this achievement so sweet is that the Proteas had to work so hard for it. England fought from the 1st Day of the 1st Test till the last wicket was taken on the last day of the Test series. The media gave this team no chance before the series. They said the Proteas had not played enough cricket before this Test series. Beating England at home 2-0 in a Test series is an incredible feat.  The win ended England's impressive streak of seven consecutive Test series wins at home and extended the Proteas' run of six years without defeat in Test series overseas.

For the 1st time in a long time all the pieces of the puzzle came together for this talented team. South Africa has always produced wonderful Test cricketers but they just could not dominate the world of Test cricket.

Great Coach
Gary Kirsten has been planning for this series from the moment he signed his contract as national coach and his preparation should not go unappreciated, despite his greatest efforts to avoid the limelight. He got the team mentally ready for battle by taking the team to Switzerland for a team building session with adventurer and motivational speaker Mike Horn. This is the one area that the Proteas have struggled with in the past. When times got tough in this series our players did not buckle under pressure.

Great Team
The formula for success is a simple one for the Proteas. It is based on a very strong batting line-up with seven specialist batsmen which has been made possible by AB de Villiers keeping. Our top 4 got BIG 100s. This balances up the test team perfectly.
On top of that South Africa have the best pace attack by far in world cricket at the moment. Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander have been just awesome. Jacques Kallis has also chipped in with the odd crucial wicket. Imran Tahir, although not quite the best spinner around, gives variation to the attack. The South African fielding unit is rock-solid as well. There is no chink in the South African armour. They held onto their catches when it mattered most. England dropped 8!


Hashim Amla: Man of the Series

Next Challenge
The toughest challenge now will be staying as the number 1 Test team. Everyone will lift their game against us. The next challenge for this Proteas Test squad is a trip to Australia who are ranked 3rd in the ICC Test Rankings. Becoming number 1 was tough, staying number will be even tougher.

The team went on a lap of honour around Lord's

Shaun Pollock finally got a chance to ring the bell at Lord's

Great Captain: Most capped captain ever!

Johan Botha leaves SA cricket

Botha will be released from his national contract with Cricket South Africa after the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka in September.

“Johan has been an excellent servant of South African cricket for a lengthy period of time and we will never forget the manner in which he captained the Proteas to success in the absence of Graeme Smith in the away ODI series in Australia in 2009,” said CSA’s acting chief executive, Jacques Faul, in a statement.



“He has fully committed himself to the Proteas for the next five months which includes the away series in Zimbabwe and England as well as the World Twenty20 and is, at the moment, our first choice spinner in the T20 format.

“However, he has had an offer to captain South Australia over the next two seasons and this will provide valuable opportunities in broadening his experience in a leadership role.
“I must stress that Johan remains fully committed to South African cricket in the long run and is by no means bringing down the curtain on his international career for the Proteas.”
In line with the above statement from Faul, Botha reiterated his desire to grow as a leader and have no regrets, and said it was a cricketing decision entirely.

This is just bad news for our cricket. Johan Botha is a current Protea player. It is not like he is out the team. How many more players are we going to lose?? This is very strange. There was talk of increasing the number of franchise teams but if top players are leaving who will play in them??

Johan Botha came through the ranks in SA cricket. He played in our development teams before making it into the national side. A lot of money has been invested in his cricket. Time will tell.

Has Old Trafford Lost The Fear Factor

Opposition teams used to fear visiting Old Trafford. It was a Theatre of Nightmares for away managers who would go there and just park the bus in front of their goalposts. But this season something has changed. For some reason teams are no longer scared to take on Sir Alex Ferguson’s boys in front of their fans.

Some years ago Roy Keane complained about the atmosphere, or lack of it, created by the home fans with his infamous “prawn sandwiches” outburst. Maybe the United fans are too comfortable, or even too quiet, but certainly the atmosphere is no longer intimidating enough for away players.

This season Manchester United have lost only two league matches at home. Bottom of the table Blackburn Rovers won 3-2 and Manchester City thrashed them 6-1. In the Champions League, of their three home games United won only one – with a 2-2 draw against Benfica and a 3-3 tie with Basel, ultimately leading to them getting knocked out. In the Europa League, Ajax Amsterdam won 2-1 and last week Spain’s Athletic Bilbao outplayed United and came away 3-2 winners.

Despite this, United have shown that on their day they can still hurt teams big time at Old Trafford. This is clear in the 8-2 annihilation of Arsenal, while Wigan succumbed to a 5-0 defeat, Bolton and Tottenham lost 3-0, while Chelsea were disposed of with a 3-1 victory.

Looking at that home record, it doesn’t appear too bad. The thing is, teams now think they have a chance when they go to Old Trafford – especially, it seems, European teams. Now that is a worry for United’s future UEFA Champions League aspirations.

The History

When I look at the past 20 years I can recall only a few famous results by teams at Old Trafford.
In 1997, a young AS Monaco side led by Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet got the 1-1 draw they needed at Old Trafford to qualify on away goals after the first leg in France had ended 0-0.
Four years later, a goal from Paulo Di Canio was enough to send West Ham through to the fifth round of the FA Cup. The Italian rounded Fabien Barthez after latching on to Frederic Kanoute’s through ball for a famous win, with the Frenchman’s attempts to psyche him out of shooting coming in vain.
The next season, 2002′s double-winning Arsenal clinched the league at Old Trafford with a 1-0 victory, thanks to a strike from Sylvain Wiltord. The Gunners celebrated winning the Premier League at the home of their bitter rivals.

The Future

Manchester United need to remind teams just how unstoppable they can be in front of their home fans. They need to instil a sense of fear back into the Old Trafford atmosphere so that visiting European teams go there trembling in their boots. In next season’s Champions League United must be more convincing if they are to have any hopes of success.

2012 Asia Cup

The 2012 Asia Cup, the 11th edition of this tournament, will be held in Bangladesh.


China was interested to host the Asia cup at Guangzhou but it was decided by the Asian Cricket Council that Bangladesh will host the event. It will be the third time Bangladesh will host the event.

The event was supposed to be held between 1 March 2012 and 11 March 2012. But it is rescheduled to avoid conflicting with the ODI tri-series in Australia that also includes Sri Lanka and India, which is ending on March 8. Now the tournament will be played from 11 March to 22 March. The teams in the event are hosts Bangladesh, defending 2010 Asia Cup Champions India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

India squad for Asia Cup:
MS Dhoni (captain), Virat Kohli (vice captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar, Rahul Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Ashok Dinda, Manoj Tiwary.

Pakistan squad for Asia Cup:
Muhammad Hafeez , Nasir Jamshed , Younis Khan, Azhar Ali, Omer Akmal, Asad Shafiq, Misbah-ul-Haq (Captain), Shahid Khan Afridi, Hammad Azam, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Saeed Ajmal, Abdul Rehman, Omer Gul, Wahab Riaz and Aizaz Cheema

Sri Lanka squad for Asia Cup: Mahela Jayawardene (capt), Angelo Mathews (vice-capt), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara, Dinesh Chandimal, Lahiru Thirimanne, Thisara Perera, Farveez Maharoof, Sachithra Senanayake Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malinga, Seekkuge Prasanna and Suranga Lakmal.

Bangladesh is the fourth team participating at the event and the final squad is not yet announced by its cricket board.

A total number of seven ODI’s will be played amongst the four teams starting from March 12th and a final winner will pick the trophy on March 22nd

1st ODI- Bangladesh Vs Pakistan on Monday March 12th

2nd ODI- India Vs Sri Lanka on March 13th

3rd ODI- Pakistan Vs Sri Lanka March 15th

4th ODI- Bangladesh Vs India March 16th

5th ODI- India Vs Pakistan March 18th

6th ODI-Bangladesh Vs Sri Lanka March 20th

7TH ODI- The final match will be played between the top two teams on March 22nd

Australian ODI Squad for the West Indies Tour

The Australian selectors have named an ODI squad for the WI tour which starts in March. The ODI squad is the same as the squad for the Commonwealth Bank Series finals beginning next week with the addition of three players in Brad Haddin, Nathan Lyon and George Bailey.

Shane Watson and Mike Hussey come back into the T20 squad to provide a great deal of experience and power to the batting line-up. There was simply no room on this occasion for Shaun Marsh, Travis Birt and Aaron Finch. Additionally, Mitchell Starc has not been selected as a member of this squad. However, Mitchell will travel with this group as a further development opportunity and spend valuable time around the Australian squad in the West Indies. Brad Hogg was also not selected but will still be considered for the T20 World cup squad later.

ODI Squad: Michael Clarke (captain), Shane Watson, George Bailey, Daniel Christian, Xavier Doherty, Peter Forrest, Brad Haddin, Ben Hilfenhaus, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Brett Lee, Nathan Lyon, Clint McKay, James Pattinson, Matthew Wade (wk), David Warner


Twenty20 Squad: George Bailey (captain), Shane Watson, Daniel Christian, Xavier Doherty, Peter Forrest, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Brett Lee, Nathan Lyon, Clint McKay, James Pattinson, Matthew Wade (wk), David Warner

Match schedule:

ODI Series
Friday, 16 March - 1st ODI at Arnos Vale Cricket Ground, St Vincent
Sunday, 18 March - 2nd ODI at Arnos Vale Cricket Ground, St Vincent
Tuesday, 20 March - 3rd ODI at Arnos Vale Cricket Ground, St Vincent
Friday, 23 March - 4th ODI at Beausejour Cricket Ground, St Lucia
Sunday, 25 March - 5th ODI at Beausejour Cricket Ground, St Lucia

T20 Series
Tuesday, 27 March - 1st T20 at Beausejour Cricket Ground, St Lucia
Friday, 30 March - 2nd T20 at Kensington Oval, Barbados