The glorious uncertainties of T20

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by Saurabh Somani

Right. So now we can get started. This is much more like what Twenty20 cricket should be like. To someone who has grown up watching Sachin and Sourav, Rahul and Anil and Laxman all play for the same team - the IPL presented a dilemma of sorts, because there was no team I could call my own. Now that we're back to country versus country instead of franchisee versus franchisee, the competition looks more real.

With the start of the World Cup, everyone is inevitably asking the question: Who is the favourite? Who is most likely to lift the cup?

After my last attempt at prediction, I've (wisely) decided that it is something best left to tarot card readers. Instead it is better to give pointers about exactly why it is impossible to say anything with certainty in the shortest format of the game - other than the fact that Sourav Ganguly's will be the most eagerly awaited voice in the commentary box.

Point 1: The conditions in England

View: English conditions will help the seam bowlers, and batting will be relatively difficult. Almost the first words one hears as a cricket fan are that the subcontinent has dustbowls that aid spin, Australia have pitches that are mostly true veering towards aiding pace and England has pitches and weather that help seam and swing bowlers. And it's not just grandmother lore: we've seen bowlers become twice the men they were when put in English climes, we've seen batsmen grope for a ball that suddenly appears to have a mind of its own, and we've seen players reared on comfortable pitches made to look like they chose the wrong career.

Counterview: The myth that England aids seam and swing is a thing of the past. Witness the last event that was global in nature that England staged - the 1999 World Cup. India's top order batsmen made runs aplenty, scoring at an average of 43.81 and a strike rate of 80.53. Bearing in mind that this was 1999, these were fantastic numbers.

The final of that World Cup was on 20th June. The final for this one is on 21st June. Because the Twenty20 format is shorter than the 50 over one, we have several double headers, and the tournament is starting considerably later than the 1999 one. This means that the worst of the conditions that England offers are going to be largely skipped, since traditionally, it gets easier to bat in England as the summer grows.

Taken into account with the fact that batsmen score much more freely now than they did, this tournament could be an even bigger bat-fest than the 1999 World Cup.



Point 2: Twenty20 is a young man's game

View: The format is such that, there is often very little to separate the winner from the loser, which means that every run saved, every single converted into two, every athletic effort is very valuable. And obviously athleticism is the domain of the young. You can't expect a 35 year old to field with the same tigerish ferociousness that a 22 year old will display. Again, what you lose in terms of experience that the senior pros bring is not of too great a value, because vast experience is needed more when there is time to build an innings or plot a dismissal - time that is absent in Twenty20 cricket. If you have to go out and give the ball a good whack for 2 or 3 overs, it doesn't really matter whether you've played 1 Test match or 100.

Counterview: As the recently concluded IPL showed, those who write off the seniors end up looking only slightly less foolish than Ramiz Raja does in the commentary box. True, they might move slower in the field than their younger counterparts, but the best ones make up for that with the sheer weight of runs and wickets. As our analysis in Cricbuzz shows, an appreciable number of seniors made it to the list of the 'Most Valuable Players' in the IPL. So maybe the older guys do have a place in the game's youngest format and maybe experience does count for something even in a 20 over mad dash. And maybe Twenty20 is not about managing to thwack the ball right from the word go, with a better method being to play oneself in a little and then start going for it. And that is something the experienced pro can do much quicker than the young rookie.



Point 3: Recent performance is indicative of form

View: Every captain talks about the 'winning momentum' that his side hopes to achieve and/or continue. Essentially, winning and losing are both like habits - once acquired hard to break out of. That is part of the reason why champion sides win more consistently, often conjuring a victory from seemingly impossible positions, while struggling sides tend to lose many games that seem to be in the bag. (On an unrelated note, that is also amongst the popular reasons trotted out by English supporters when they lose yet another Ashes series). In a tournament like the T20 World Cup, the winning momentum is all the more important. For most of the top teams, getting through to the second stage is relatively easy, but once there, if their players hit the zone, a run of 4 consecutive victories could well land them the title.

Counterview: The twenty20 format ensures that past results actually count for very little in the present match. Case in point: the Bangalore Royal Challengers in the recent IPL. After four consecutive defeats, nobody would have given them a hope of reaching the finals, but they did it in spectacular style. Going into the finals, they were on a run of 6 consecutive wins while Deccan had a mixed bag. Thus the winning momentum was firmly with Bangalore, but it was Deccan who ended up with the title. Even for a team that is down in the dumps, things can change very quickly if one batsman throws his bat around and gets lucky by connecting well.



Verdict:

Twenty20 is the embodiment of the phrase 'the glorious uncertainties of cricket'. It is the format that most bridges the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, thus ensuring that every team has a good chance, and making the task of predicting winners a very hazardous one. Therefore, it is best to sit back and enjoy the game, celebrate the success of one's heroes, and go home not too disappointed if one's team doesn't do well. After all, they probably would have just fallen prey to the glorious uncertainties of T20 cricket.