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Australia are on the brink of achieving an unprecedented feat in cricket – winning the Men’s T20 World Cup would see Australia hold every major cricket trophy across the men’s and women’s teams combined.
They are the World Test champions and 50-over world champions in the men’s and women’s games, with the women also winning the recent T20 World Cup.
Mitchell Marsh is the team’s new captain after a 12-month trial period and will be hoping the team can replicate what Pat Cummins achieved in the 50-over tournament in India less than a year ago. Despite the change in leadership, there have been few changes to the squad, with a similar core of players to the one that lifted the trophy in Ahmedabad.
Australia will be a force to be reckoned with, having only won one game in eight previous T20 World Cup tournaments, and those victories came in COVID-affected tournaments in Oman and the United Arab Emirates. It will also be Australia great David Warner’s final international appearance, provided he recovers from a finger injury he sustained before the tournament.
Travis Head, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green and Marcus Stoinis have all excelled in the Indian Premier League, with Starc and Cummins having played in the final, suggesting they are in good shape and preparation for the match.
The rest of the team’s preparations for the tournament were delayed slightly – with only nine players in the warm-up against Namibia and the coaches having to take to the field – but this did not prevent Australia from winning comfortably by seven wickets.
They will undoubtedly be among the favourites to win both the USA and the West Indies, and given their form over the past few years, they will be a tough team to stop, especially with this potentially their last ICC tournament for many of their players.
India
India go into the tournament as the obvious favourites, but it has been a long time since they last won an international tournament – 11 years since they won the Champions Trophy in 2013.
Looking at their line-up, it is hard to find a weak spot, especially with Rishabh Pant back in the team as number five batsman and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli still in good form. The depth of the squad means there is only room for Shubman Gill as a travelling reserve, with Jasprit Bumrah likely to perform at his best.
India appear to have overcome the disappointing defeat to Australia in the 50-over final in front of 100,000 home fans in November and cannot afford to fail again.
England
More than half the England squad is playing in the IPL and some of them were unhappy to be called up for the rain-affected T20 match against Pakistan, but the team as a whole looks slightly underprepared for the tournament.
Jos Buttler’s side head to the Caribbean as the defending champions but will only be able to play a handful of matches as many of their players have not played a match for months or are playing red-ball cricket for their countries.
England have played just six T20 matches since November last year – five fewer than Australia and 10 fewer than India – and are a far cry from their intense 10-match build-up to the 2022 tournament, which they won.
But there are more questions than answers for England, with Buttler taking over as wicketkeeper despite never replacing Salt in the IPL and two fast bowlers, Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, lacking match practice.
The tournament itself begins with a flashback to history, as the United States takes on Canada in the opening match, a subtle nod to the first-ever international cricket match between the two teams in 1844.
However, it will be the team adopting the newest format of the game (other than the Hundred) that wins and although India go into the tournament as favourites, it will be tough for anyone to stop Australia.