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    June 02, 2009

    Rashid Latif's T20 World Cup semi-final lineup prediction

    Rashid Latif, one of Pakistan's enfant-terribles and a much sought-after cricketer for the rent-a-quote agency he runs, last week expressed concern that India's cricketers would be jaded after having played the IPL and would hence not do well at the T20 World Cup which starts in England in a couple of days.
    I don't think it was a brilliant idea to have the Indian Premier League before the Twenty20 World Cup. It was poor thinking on part of the Indian cricket officials.
    Maybe he knows something about the international cricket calendar and global weather patterns that no-one else does.

    The period from April to June is typically the leanest for international cricket because to a large extent, West Indies and England are the only places where cricket can be played. It is far too hot in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh and cold in Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and New Zealand. Even in England, April and May are the rainy months.

    Given contractual commitments, the IPL had to happen. There was a lot that the IPL organizers did wrong when it came to engaging the Indian government. There was no way that the tournament would be postponed (because there simply was no other free slot available) or cancelled (telecast rights, team owners having spent millions of $ in securing the services of players). So, the tournament went to South Africa, and was a rip-roaring success primarily because of the quality of cricket.

    There's also no doubt that the Indian players have been on the road for the last 3-4 months after the tour of Pakistan was cancelled, playing ODIs in Sri Lanka, touring New Zealand and then the IPL. Yet, I don't quite think they're at a stage where they're jaded.

    Given a choice between turning up for a T20 World Cup after playing 15 T20 games involving most of the best cricketers and ODIs & a single T20 game against Australia's third choice XI, I know which one I'd prefer if I was an international cricketer.

    Going by Latif's logic, countries that didn't contribute significantly to the IPL player base should do very well at the T20 World Cup. So which country has the most number of players in their T20 World Cup squads who didn't show up at the IPL? Let's exclude the Associates teams for obvious reasons.
    Country# of players
    Australia11
    Bangladesh13
    England9
    India0
    New Zealand8
    Pakistan15
    South Africa3
    Sri Lanka5
    West Indies11
    The semi-final lineup suddenly looks so bloody obvious: Pakistan, Bangladesh, West Indies and Australia.

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    Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:10 pm |
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    3 sledge(s):

    I am not sure I agree.

    Surely players who are in the "20/20 Zone" are at an advantage ?

    By Anonymous Cricket Bats (3 Jun 2009, 12:27:00 am)  

    any comments Mr. Writer ... i think Rashid latif was right ... now the whole bloddy world thinks the same ...

    By Anonymous Anonymous (30 Jun 2009, 1:17:00 pm)  

    Dear Mr. Anonymous - It'd have been awesome for _you_ to have mentioned in a public forum that you believed Pakistan would win.

    By Blogger Jagadish (30 Jun 2009, 6:04:00 pm)  


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