T20 World Cup

This week the groups for the 2021 T20 World Cup were announced, the World Cup starts on Oct 17th and the new champions will be celebrating on Nov 14th. An interesting mix in both the groups and extremely difficult to pick favorites or sides but I am going to weigh in and predict the Group winners, top 2 in both the groups, finalists and the champions.

Firstly, in the group stages from Group A the 2 teams most probably are Sri Lanka and Ireland. Sri Lanka is a pretty established team and Ireland has been better than Netherlands. I personally haven’t seen Namibia team play so a flourish from them won't be surprising.

Secondly, from Group B the 2 teams may be Bangladesh and Scotland, 2 decently set teams. Oman is not a stable team with consistent performance and this is the first time for Papua New Guinea to be part of the T20 World Cup. Just like the expectation for Namibia a flourish from Papua New Guinea shouldn’t be surprising.

Now the group stages, from Group 1 it will mostly be West Indies and England. Especially because of the recent T20 between Australia and West Indies when WI dominated Australia and won the series 4-1, also keeping in mind that WI are the current champions. England are the second best choice with the variety of players in their team, consistent performance and a recent win against Sri Lanka with 3-0 lead. This group will be deciding the course of the world cup and can go in any way.

Group 2, a decent mix but not as strong as Group 1. The 2 teams may be India and New Zealand. India's team is in the prime form with various talents and is in a very difficult position to choose the best players for the squad. New Zealand is a very strong team with great talent and strength with a confidence boost after winning the ICC Test Final. Pakistan may not be a real threat for the teams as the squad is not strong enough.

According to my predictions, West Indies will play New Zealand and England will play India in the semis. I will back West Indies and India if they play with this squad.

Ideal Indian Squad

1. Rohit Sharma

2. KL Rahul

3. Virat Kohli

4. Suryakumar Yadav

5. Shreyas Iyer

6. Ravindra Jadeja

7. Rishabh Pant

8. Jasprit Bumrah

9. Mohammed Shami

10. Bhuvneshwar Kumar

11. Yuzvendra Chahal

Subs: Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, T.Natrajan, Deepak Chahar

If the team is better than mine (probably not) then I still would otherwise I support England.

Finals:

WI vs. IND - IND

WI vs. ENG - WI