T20 World Cup: Ten things we learned in a tournament for the ages
Fallen idols, super minnows, winning – and losing – tactics and a glimpse at cricket’s future. Here are Robert Craddock’s biggest lessons from a memorable T20 World Cup.
Fallen idols, fresh voices, feisty decks on which David occasionally tore down Goliath … this was a memorable T20 World Cup.
Here’s 10 things that stood out in a memorable tournament which gave cricket a snapshot into an exotic world beyond its traditional stars.
A PINCH OF CHILLI
Who says bowlers have to be slaves?
The Cup showed the best T20 decks are not batting roads but ones with enough bounce to give bowlers a fighting chance. The MCG wicket for the final, which also offered some turn, was excellent.
The early season greenness of some World Cup wickets made for fascinating duels. Fours and sixes often felt special rather than routine. In the final, Pakistan made just 137 yet was in the game all the way.
SHORT-FORM SPECIALISTS
England chose just two players from its last Test team in its side for the World Cup final.
By choosing white ball specialists – Australia likes a more traditional all formats team – they can tap into more specific skill sets, but also have a team that seems fresh and alive at the major tournaments.
THE OUTSIDE VOICE
Significantly, the two teams in the final – England and Pakistan – had a strong overseas coaching presence with Australia’s Matthew Mott, David Saker and Mike Hussey coaching England and Matthew Hayden and Shaun Tait Pakistan.
Hiring experienced voices such as Hayden as consultants can be a canny move because they are more likely to speak up given they are not trying to protect their long-term future with the team.
CAPTAINS CALL
Aaron Finch was far from Australia’s worst player, but the debate over his presence cast a heavy shadow over the host’s every move.
Decorated England captain Eoin Morgan was the same age as Finch (35) when he quit mid-year after form and fitness issues, allowing Jos Buttler the chance to snare World Cup glory.
THE ANCHOR MAN
Ben Stokes, with a sublime 52 of 49 in the final, proved there was still a place for a heavy duty anchormen in the T20 game – but don’t try it unless you have a fifth gear. The jury is still out on whether Kane Williamson from New Zealand goes hard enough at the end.
FALLEN IDOLS
World Cups always offer an insight into the changing power base of world cricket, and the West Indies are a major worry.
From players disagreeing with each other at training sessions to landslide defeats to Ireland and Scotland, they looked a ghost of a team and have won just two of their last 11 T20 matches. A challenging future awaits them in all formats.
THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPS
The 30-minute ticket sell out of the Pakistan v India match at the MCG proved that this contest is in another hemisphere to any other cricket game.
But don’t go expecting them to play a Test – anywhere – soon. Their governments would not allow it.
SPREADING THE WORD
This was a great tournament for the growth of the game – a trait cricket has been traditionally poor at.
To see Namibia beat Sri Lanka, Ireland beat England, Scotland beat the West Indies, Zimbabwe beat Pakistan and the Netherlands down South Africa was stirring confirmation that in this form of the gap the gap between the best and worst sides is tantalisingly small.
That’s a potent selling point for expansion. Bring on the USA.
BATTING FOREVER
To have a No.11 batsman (Adil Rashid) who had 10 first-class centuries gave England’s top order the confidence to go hard all the way knowing they had a solid safety net to catch them if they fell.
This is freakish depth and it may change the way teams are picked. Rashid’s mesmerising performances with the ball in thesemi-final and final also showed the value of wrists spinners who can beat both sides of the bat.
OVER AND OUT
The new rule which decrees a fielding team must drag an outfielder inside the 30-yard ring if they fail to complete their innings in the allotted time is a winner. It just kept the show moving and proved how much time wasting there had been in the game.
England hero’s T20 talents built on back of brutal regime
Sam Curran is the boy who lost a farm but won a World Cup.
Hidden behind another iconic innings from cricket’s ultimate big-time pressure eater Ben Stokes lay a bowling performance which was even more important.
Crafty English seamer Curran handed in one of T20’s finest big time bowling performances (3-12 off four overs) somewhere in faraway Perth the members of the Marsh family could say they saw it coming.
Former Australian opener Geoff Marsh coached Zimbabwe for three years at the start of the century and during that time the Curran family had their farm near the town of Rusape confiscated by the brutal Robert Mugabe regime.
Sam’s late father Kevin, a former first class all-rounder, was an assistant coach to Marsh and took his family to Harare where they took refuge with the Marsh family on and off for several years.
The Curran boys — Tom, Ben and Sam — played with Mitchell and Shaun Marsh and those hearty backyard games fast tracked the skills of all of them to the point where only Ben has not played Test cricket.
Sam’s deft skills which completely bamboozled Pakistan were a great advertisement for the type of experimentation that goes on in the backyard.
His incredible deeds with the ball saw him named both player of the final and player of the tournament.
Sam’s father never got to see his sons blossom because Kevin collapsed and died while jogging at age 53.
There were all sorts of wonderful storylines from the Cup including the success of Australia’s Matthew Mott as England’s new white ball coach.
Mott found out about the death of his great mate Andrew Symonds 24 hours after landing the coaching job this year and his emotions went from jubilation to abject heartbreak. His cool hand was evident in England’s victory.
The enchanting thing about England’s exceptional World Cup win was not just that they won the final but they got beaten by Ireland along the way.
That they stuttered against Afghanistan and snuck home against Sri Lanka with two balls to spare.
They finished in a blaze of glory but it was not as if England played imperious cricket all the way through. At times they looked downright vulnerable.
It says a lot about the excellence of this England team that they won the trophy despite having several games where they played well below their best.
This was one of the greatest of all white ball World Cups, with such vibrant, exotic storylines that Australia’s failure to make the semi-finals was a mere blimp along a fast moving journey.
This was the tournament that convinced cricket it finally has a game to take to the world. The next T20 World Cup in the United States and The Caribbean in two year’s time will be one of the most important cricket tournaments ever held.
To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, if cricket can crack it there it can crack it anywhere.
As much as we all love Test cricket, you can’t sell that format to newcomers because they cannot afford the first class system that operates under it. And they find it too slow.
The tournament saw Ireland, the Netherlands and Namibia upset major nations without ever looking like they were just having lucky days.
England will celebrate their win with gusto.
As will Ireland … there’s nothing quite like beating the champ.
American dream: How big could US cricket be?
– Ben Horne
Cricket’s greatest event India versus Pakistan could be headed for an exotic journey to the home of “Moneyball” in the United States.
The next Twenty20 World Cup in 2024 will be staged across the West Indies and the USA and shapes as one of the most significant moments in the sport’s history if the game can finally tap into the 5 million plus south Asian cricket-loving fans across America.
For organisers, the biggest hurdle to be overcome is the lack of big stadiums capable of hosting a blockbuster cricketing event in a major US city, however, the Oakland Coliseum, home of American baseball’s iconic Oakland A’s of Brad Pitt Moneyball fame has emerged as the one great hope.
With its unusually large foul areas, the Coliseum, located just outside San Francisco, is basically oval shaped and its dimensions for a cricket match could work out similar to Auckland’s quirky Eden Park rugby ground which has hosted major international games in the past.
The plan is a long way from becoming a reality, mainly due to the fact the June 2024 World Cup sits in the middle of the MLB season and so an arrangement would have to be worked out where the Oakland A’s go on the road for 10-14 days while their home ground is used.
However, the prospect of housing a crowd of 50,000 in a major US city with a large south Asian population like San Francisco has the potential to turn the World Cup into a history-altering moment, because playing matches in boutique 10,000 seat venues elsewhere in the country simply wouldn’t have the same head-turning impact.
“We’ve been there and done a bit of a site recce, and it would be tight, but you can fit a cricket oval in there. That’s something we’re in the early stages of exploring,” said one of the chiefs of Major League Cricket, Josh Dascumbe.
“Particularly with our co-host being the West Indies and them not having any venues that size as well, you look at India versus Pakistan, where are they going to host that where they could get anything close to the same kind of experience as what we’ve just seen over the past few weeks in Australia?
“Something like the Oakland Coliseum pops into mind. There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge for making that happen.”
A redeveloped minor league baseball stadium in Dallas capable of holding up to 20,000 will be cricket converted and completed by the World Cup.
Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar showcased the potential of cricket in the US when it hosted a series of exhibition games at major baseball stadiums back in 2015. Although the dimensions were not right for proper cricket, the fact crowds in excess of 35,000 were flocking through the gates spotlighted what the game can achieve.
The huge potential for cricket in the USA stretches well beyond the 2024 World Cup.
Next year the US T20 League will launch with a compact two and a half week season mid-year, in the middle of the American summer.
The six franchises will be based in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angles, Dallas, Washington DC and New York – all centres with major south Asian expat communities.
There are plans for boutique cricket stadiums to be built and operational in all six centres by 2025.
IPL giants the Knightriders group have bought the LA franchise, while another IPL team has purchased another side, with teams selling for an estimated $40 million.
Chief executive of Microsoft Satya Nadella and the CEO of Adobe Shantanu Narayen are also understood to have bought into the league as owners, highlighting the fact this latest foray into the US is no Mickey Mouse operation.
There is genuine hope that cricket can make similar inroads into America to what soccer did in the US when America hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
With billionaires bankrolling the operation and the playing window only two and a half weeks, there will be no shortage of international superstars keen on playing cricket in America.
But the USA league is determined to set up a groundwork of being a domestic league and have a pool of about 30 first-class cricketers like former New Zealand international Corey Anderson and England’s Liam Plunkett who have relocated to America and will qualify to play as US locals.
“That pool is about 30 players and when you overlay that with 15 around the USA national team, it gives you a core of about 50 domestic players and we’re quite adamant it has to be a domestic league,” Dascumbe said.
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