2009 T20 World Cup: Indian team odds?

The IPL is history and here comes the T-20 world cup. As fans get over their withdrawal symptoms , its time to brush off the bollywood times of cricket and don the national colours. Team India are defending champions but are they ready to win?

Let’s take a look at the Indian Team for the T20 World Cup 2009:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag (vice-captain), Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, R P Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Pragyan Ojha and Irfan Pathan.

Here's what might matter -

1. IPL performance based form:

a. Young talent: super performances from Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Pragyan Ojha , RP Singh, Ravindra Jadeja are good signs.

b. Good News, Bad News: None of the stars really fired with match winning performances. at the IPL Sehwag and Gambhir out of form, Dhoni, Yuvraj & Y Pathan very inconsistent , Zaheer injured and Harbhajan not really at full potential. If they dont get into form or adjust to English conditions, it will be hard. But perhaps they will peak now and IPL lacklustre was a good thing – well , only if the glass is half full.

2. Conditions: The conditions will be critical and seam should play a big role. With Zaheer struggling for fitness, Ishant tormented by KKR results, its only RP (who is having the time of his life) - and he may find it a huge burden to bear.

3. Home (dis) advantage? : Nasir Hussain once commented that he was disappointed with the crowds as the stands were full of British (Indians) fans who supported India. So the diaspora will be out in full force and maybe there’s no home advantage lost.

4. Bench?: They will probably start with Ishant, Bhajji instead of Ojha, I Pathan (& even Ravindra Jadeja) . That might be a mistake & there's no time for mistakes . (this is a 2 week tournament unlike the IPL)

So net, i think the big names need to strike form (Sehwag, Gambhir and Yuvraj in particular) and Dhoni needs to get the balance of the side right for India to make the finals.

The IPL format – is there a change needed? Article by Gautam Thakar

So Deccan have won a thoroughly close contest – and in general a tournament that was edge of seat for most of the last few weeks. (of course there will be the usual match fixing claims doing the rounds)

I already said in my last post that we shouldn’t be too surprised that last years bottom of the table team is this years winner. They did have the player of the tournament, the purple cap winner, the under 23 player of the tournament and X factor winners in Symonds and Gibbs.

In fact in an ironic twist the Deccan chargers today displayed total team work with everyone trying to do their bit whereas the Bangalore Royal challengers tried to go for the X factor individualism (Van de Merwe, Dravid, Taylor all attempting to close it out when just staying around would have seen them home). But there’ll be a million what if’s - i wanted to ask a different question.

Does the IPL format need a change – does the best team really win? Take a look at the pre semi – final points table.

As you can see – even if you adjust it for the semi – finals ; Deccan Chargers would end with 18 points. Two points shy of Delhi with an extra game and a worse net run rate. And their IPL lscoreccard against Delhi would be 2-1 to Delhi. (Actually 2-0 for Delhi vs Deccan and 0-1 for Delhi vs Adam Gilchrist). Doesn’t sound totally fair. You’d argue that this is true for all major competitions including cricket itself. Yes , that’s right however those games aren’t as elaborate – ie 8 teams playing 14 games each. It’s one thing to have groups with fewer games and a knock out and quite another to play so many games and then hinge on one bad day.

The English Premier league which by the way has 20 teams and each play 38 games DOES NOT have a semi-final and final. The team with the highest points wins. Well, the downside of that is less excitement and perhaps interest if one team is too strong but still a fairer result.

How about an alternative option?

Each IPL team plays each other just once (so 7 games instead of 14). I don’t think the home and away argument holds – after all we played a whole tournament very far away from home :-) The top 4 teams are then in a “semi-final league” where they play each other once (or twice even if needed). Then the top two from this play a best of 3 final.

Practically speaking as well – as the number of franchises increase it will be hard to have the teams play each other twice; unless of course T-20 becomes the only form of cricket!!!

I do think this will maximize the chances of the best team winning while keeping the total number of games played in the same range.

What think?