Sunday, September 30, 2012

THE IDEAL T-20 STRATEGY

Too much is made into analyzing T-20 matches, but the fact remains T-20 is one format where instinct and luck beats strategy hands down. Although you still have to do the basics like putting a rank bad ball away, fielding well and taking catches.

Lets take a look at the last 3 T-20 WC winners- India in 2007, Pakistan in 2009 and England in 2010. See anything in common ? They all started the tournament as no-hopes. Pakistan in 2009 in one of the warm-up games was thrashed by India ( They won by 9 wickets or so ). They won the cup and India couldn't win a super-8 game ! The moment you start thinking "Here is my T-20 strategy" , That's it ! Game Over. The successful teams in a tournament are the ones that treat each game on merit and don't think too far into the tournament. Rankings in T-20 don't make sense either. I remember in the 2011 IPL the top ranked Mumbai Indians seemed unbeatable. One day they ran into wooden spooners Kochi Tuskers and lost easily despite a Tendulkar 100 and a 180+ score because McCullum happened to have one his days.

Is Australia in form ? Maybe ! or Maybe not ! They have had best of the batting conditions so far. If they were caught on a dry pitch like today against sub-continent spinners, Watson and Warner are more likely to mishit than hit. Also they are a one-man show right now. Are India in form or are they out of form at the moment ? They thrashed England and Pakistan and were mauled by Australia. The answer is there is nothing called "team is in form" in T-20. Pakistan play spin well, but the Indian part-timers had them in knots except for a brief period where Malik and Akmal were batting. On another day they might get smashed. NZ are poorly ranked, but gave SL a serious scare. SL had two mystery spinners and Malinga, but on that day all NZ mishits were flying in vacant areas except for the super-over. On another day they might have ended up 80 all out. Are England hopeless ? I don't think so. They have some good instinctive T-20 players. If they win the toss and if one of Morgan or Wright fires, they might beat SL

If you ask me to pick a favorite in this tournament, my money would be on Australia. They came in as no hopes and are just looking to win every game without thinking too far into the tournament. All you need is a decent bowling lineup and a batter in red hot form. Australia have that.

So is there an ideal T-20 strategy ? There is none !  So what should a team do, going into a T-20 WC ? Do the basics, but go and have fun , hope for the best and not read too much into the results.