ICC Cricket T20 World Cup-2021: The Big One Tomorrow As Super-12 Rivalries Start!
The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup-2021 started
in Oman and UAE with an upset in Group-B qualifiers when Scotland delivered a
shock defeat to Bangladesh on 17th October and the qualifier stage
concluded on 22nd October with another history-making upset as
Namibia edged out the test-playing nation Ireland and entered the Super-12
stage for the first time. So, we have now qualifiers: from Group-A—the topper
Sri Lanka enters the Group-1 and runners-up Namibia in Group-2 of the Super-12
while the Group-B topper Scotland enters Group-2 and the runners-up Bangladesh
in Group-1 of the Super-12 stage. The six teams in each group will play matches
between themselves on a round-robin basis and the two top teams of each group
will sail into the semi-finals. The highly competitive and tough rivalries of
the Super-12 stage starts today with Australia
All attention in the subcontinent is
naturally focused of the big encounter tomorrow, Sunday the 24th
October, between archrivals India and Pakistan—the kind of encounters that have
become rare as the bilateral ties between the two countries have been going
through continuous tension since the Mumbai terror attack in 2008 and later the
terror attack on the Sri Lanka team in Pakistan in 2009 after which all
international cricket matches stopped to be staged in Pakistan and the country
was rejected as a co-host with India in the ICC Cricket World Cup-2011. Since then
all bilateral cricket is no longer there except for a brief tour when the BCCI
invited Pakistan to play three ODIs and two T20Is in India in 2012. Pakistan players
were also not allowed to participate in the IPL bonanza.
It is natural for most of the Indians to
have reservations against Pakistan playing cricket with India due to the former’s
endless duplicity and repeated terror attacks on the Indian soldiers in Jammu
and Kashmir. However, we must take this in the spirit of inclusive sports in
the form of World Cricket tournaments like in other international events like
the Olympics. For their consolation the bilateral cricket has been completely
suspended since 2012 even as genuine cricket lovers are really missing the
classic encounters on the field. Therefore, the World Cricket tournaments offer
us rare opportunities to have the privilege of watching the archrivals in full
display. For that matter, Afghanistan, a participant, too was taken over by a
terrorist group and that cannot lead to the team’s rejection in the same spirit
of sports. Personally speaking human beings in all the countries are similar in
sentiments and affection while the policies are made by only a few of the
strategic rulers. For example, when the Taliban took over Afghanistan my first
thought was about the safety of the lovely and sweet-behaved popular players
like Rashid Khan in cricket and many others.
Coming back to the India-Pakistan encounter
tomorrow evening India seem to have the advantage as they have won all of 12
matches in the one-day and T20 ICC World Cups so far, and lost only in the
Champions Trophy with 2 wins for India against 3 by Pakistan. In Asia Cup
cricket ODIs and T20Ia India won 7 against Pakistan’s 2 while the Asian Test
Championship was won by the latter. Besides, India have been in ominous form in
terms of both batting and bowling, gaining from the IPL-2021, the warm-up match
wins and the recent victories over Australia and England in away-matches. In the
last two years Pakistan won cricket series against Zimbabwe and South Africa
while losing to New Zealand and England, and they lost the warm-up game against
South Africa in this tournament. However, records don’t matter as far as the
performances on the field in that particular day and that three and half hours
are concerned. Pakistan has a balanced team with Captain Babar Azam as a
dominant batsman joined by Shadab Khan and Fakhar Zaman, bowling all-rounder
Mohammad Hafeez who can turn matches in his team’s favor anytime and Pakistan’s
always-celebrated pacers and class spinners. All these factors only make the
coming encounter in Dubai tomorrow a mouth-watering prospect.
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