ICC World Twenty20
Tendulkar tips seamers to shine
May 28, 2009
| ||
Sachin Tendulkar has said he is confident about India defending its World Twenty20 title and expects the pace attack to come good in English conditions. "It is on par with the best," he told Daily News and Analysis. "Zaheer [Khan], Ishant [Sharma] and RP Singh form a lethal combination, particularly in English conditions. Our seam attack has a lot of variety and would come handy in such conditions. On our day, we can demolish any batting side."
Tendulkar, who will not take part in the World Twenty20, had stressed the need for the Indian players to get adequate rest ahead of the competition after an intense IPL. He had singled out India's opening combination, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, which had struggled in the IPL, to fight fatigue in the lead-up to the tournament in England.
When asked about Sehwag's poor run, Tendulkar said: "Every player has ups and downs in his career and Viru [Sehwag] is no exception. But an on-song Viru is a delight to watch. If he gets one cover drive right, he'll mesmerise everybody and will again be back to his best. The bowlers will be at his mercy then. He is a superb striker of the ball ... on his day, he can do anything."
Tendulkar tipped India as the favourites for competition, for he felt that rather than just some individuals making the difference, the team is the best balanced outfit around. "We come as a package," he said. "I am certain this package is the best in business at the moment. This package has everything which is necessary to make us world champions once again.
"India is the most balanced side in the world and there is no doubt we can defend the title. We have very good cricketers in our side and we have proved that this combination is the deadliest."
ICC World Twenty20 2009
No pressure on SL for World Twenty20 - Sangakkara
May 28, 2009
| ||
Kumar Sangakkara said his team would make a "very strong impact" on the World Twenty20 with less pressure on it to perform in this format. The tournament, which begins next week in England, marks Sangakkara's maiden tour as captain since taking over from Mahela Jayawardene, and the team's return to cricket following the Lahore attack in March.
"I don't think there is as much pressure on us in the T20 format as an international side as when we play Test cricket and one-day cricket. It is still a format that we are exploring but I think with the side we have, we have a great opportunity to make a very strong impact," Sangakkara said before his team's departure for London on Thursday.
Sri Lanka are with Australia and West Indies in Group C, which Sangakkara described as the group of death but also pointed to the opportunities it presented. "You've got to win at least one game. But at the end of the day you have to beat the best sides in the world to qualify in a tournament. We've just got to take our chances," he said.
In the inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa in 2007, Sri Lanka came through unbeaten in their group and qualified for the Super Eight before being eliminated.
Sangakkara said he believed the side had the right balance for the tournament and was confident his sometimes inconsistent batting line-up would play its part in their success. "I am definitely confident of the batting we have. You take [Tillakaratne] Dilshan, Sanath [Jayasuriya], Mahela [Jayawardene], [Jehan] Mubarak, Chamara [Silva] and myself - we've got great batting talent to represent the country in a World Cup.
"A hundred and twenty balls is a long time. Even though Twenty20 cricket seems short it is not really that short when you are batting. If you plan your innings right and hopefully execute it on that day any score over 150 would be a very competitive one."
Sri Lanka's bowling line-up, he said, was one of the best in the tournament.
"There is [Nuwan] Kulasekera, who is no. 1 in the world, Murali, Ajantha [Mendis], Thilan Thushara and Lasith Malinga who has come back so strongly. It's a great mix but at the end of the day it doesn't matter what you have, you've got to walk the walk basically to really get on the field and perform well," he said.
Sri Lanka have included Angelo Mathews and Farveez Maharoof in the squad, and Sangakkara feels one of them could fill the vacant allrounder spot. "Angelo is a batting allrounder and Maharoof, a bowling allrounder. One of them has got the ability to put their hands up and become that allrounder that all sides are looking for and one we haven't had for a long time."
Indika de Saram comes into the side after a long time on the back of some very good domestic performances and Sangakkara described Isuru Udana as an exciting prospect with his change-up. "He was the best performing bowler in the domestic tournament from what I have seen", he said.
Sri Lanka begin their campaign on June 8 against Australia at Trent Bridge and take on West Indies two days later at the same venue in Group C.
ICC World Twenty20 2009
Watch out for India at World Twenty20 - Arthur
May 28, 2009
| ||
Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, has said India is the team he will be keeping an eye on during the World Twenty20 because the defending champions have more game-breakers than most other teams. South Africa, he said, would be "very, very formidable" too because of their flexibility, unpredictability, batting depth and fielding.
He shied away from predicting who the semi-finalists would be in England, but said India, with explosive players like MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma and Yusuf Pathan, would be the team to beat.
"I think any team has the ability to win this competition," Arthur told Cricinfo. "Every team has game-breakers and you only have to have your game-breaker coming off once to win you a game, the game is so short that one major performance wins you a game. But obviously, a team like India has more game-breakers than most teams, so they are definitely going to be one to keep an eye on. We are in the same group as India in the Super Eights, so that's going to be vital and we see them as a side that could do well in England."
His own team has a few strengths he plans to bank on. "Our strengths will be our flexibility, unpredictability, our ability to bat deep and to have so many bowling options at any given point of time during the tournament," he said. "The other major strong point for us is we are going to be a really good fielding unit. Our theme has always been seven bowling options and batting very deep."
In fact, many players in this South African squad can be called on to bat or bowl in any given situation. "Flexibility is going to be one of the keys for us and we are going to be very, very formidable."
So much so, Arthur claimed that he could not really pick any particular weak spot. "I don't want to sound arrogant, but I don't think there are too many weak spots. It's going to be how we actually gel as a team and how we perform our cricket disciplines straight up. It will be vital for us to be getting some momentum, and that we can only do on the cricket field. So, in a way, that will be our test."
One name on the South African team list, though, has raised a few eyebrows - that of Jacques Kallis, who did not figure in South Africa's 2007 World Twenty20 team - but Arthur defended his selection.
"Jacques gives us two clear options, in batting and bowling," he said. "So he is two players rolled into one. From two years ago, when he was not in our World Cup team, Jacques has taken time to work his Twenty20 game out. He has shown what he is capable of in the Twenty20 format. In fact, he was in our team even before the IPL (where Kallis came good for Bangalore after flopping in 2008). We had picked our team before that tournament."
The South African coach also credited the IPL for some of his team's confidence going into the world event. Twelve of his 15-member World Twenty20 squad played for various franchises in the IPL - which ended last weekend - and, apart from the cricket, Arthur said, they returned with information from players of other international teams who were involved in the Indian league. These inputs have been added to the South African tournament blueprint during a short strategy-cum-bonding camp that the team, which leaves for England on Friday, assembled for after the IPL.
"The IPL has been very good for our players," Arthur said. "They have got stuck in and taken responsibility for their franchises. We have discussed what the guys did well and what they haven't. We will use that information on completing our eventual final blueprint.
"Flexibility is going to be one of the keys for South Africa and we are going to be very, very formidable" Mickey Arthur | |||
"We wanted them to find out whether anything was being done differently by other teams. By and large, though, there isn't much of a difference from what we have on our original blueprint. But it's always good to get some outside information about other strategies. "
On the flip side, Arthur said, there is a bit of a worry about the mental fatigue factor for those who have played in the IPL and will start all over again in England next week, a concern India coach Gary Kirsten had raised about his players. "I think Gary is right, there could be a little bit of it," Arthur said. "I think there might be a bit of mental fatigue, which is why we have just gone away and re-energised the guys. We haven't gone to major cricket disciplines; we have rather gone to talk, set goals and build our team. That's how we planned it out. "
Finally, Arthur said, what would matter in the World Twenty20 tournament is the speed at which the teams adapt to conditions in England next month. "If the weather is dry in England then spin will definitely play a role."
South Africa missed out on a place in the semi-finals of the inaugural World Twenty20 in 2007 after starting off brightly. There were poised for a semi-final spot after four victories in a row but suffered a massive slip-up against India in Durban, losing by 37 runs to bow out of the competition.
This time, South Africa open the tournament in Group D, along with New Zealand and Scotland. They play their first warm-up game against Pakistan at Trent Bridge on June 1 and take on Sri Lanka in another practice match at Lord's on June 3, before heading over to the Oval for their first match of the tournament against Scotland on June 7.
Speaking to Cricinfo on the eve of the tournament, Elworthy admitted that the game's administrators had learnt their lessons from the disastrous Caribbean World Cup in 2007, and were also mindful of overloading the calendar with too many marquee events. But regardless of the hype and glamour of the recently completed Indian Premier League, he insisted that tickets for the World Twenty20 were proving extremely popular in what he described as a "unique summer" for the ECB.
"The key point with any product is the exclusivity," said Elworthy. "You want people walking away at the end of a match wanting more, you want them to say: 'I can't wait for next season because I can't wait for the next Twenty20 competition'.
"[It's true that] there've been a couple of very big competitions in a fairly short space of time, but it'll settle down. It is a massive summer of cricket for the ECB, but it's a unique summer. It doesn't happen very often to get the Ashes and a world event in the same year and hosted by the same board."
Elworthy was appointed to his role by the ECB back in January, having successfully overseen the inaugural World Twenty20 in September 2007 in his native South Africa. That tournament was won in a thrilling final by India, who chose to return to the country to stage last month's IPL, when the competition was forced overseas by the unstable political climate in the subcontinent.
"The IPL is a fantastic domestic product and its success is widely recognised," said Elworthy. "But this is nation versus nation, and everything we are doing goes back to that pride of pulling on your shirt and representing your country. What's the hook when you're watching the match? It's the fact that you want your country to do well."
According to Elworthy, the ICC is still heeding the lessons learnt at the 2007 World Cup, which featured 47 matches in 51 days, unrealistic ticket prices and some grindingly dull cricket between ill-matched teams. The original World Twenty20 took place just six months on from that event, and was an unqualified success thanks largely to a rock-bottom pricing policy that opened the gates to a whole new audience.
"Twenty20 is deemed a development product," said Elworthy. "It is for attracting new markets and new spectators and fans, who will hopefully go on to play cricket and participate. You've got to be able to get to the youth market, because what you're trying to achieve is dictated to you by your ticket price."
Tickets for the 2007 event ranged from the equivalent of £1.50 for the opening rounds to a top-tier cost of £11 for the final, and even allowing for a stronger UK economy and the knowledge of the event's popularity, those prices are considerably lower than the ones on offer in 2009. This time around, adult tickets will range from £20 at Trent Bridge to £90 at Lord's, even though Under-16s will be able to watch the final for as little as a tenner.
"You can't have an elite ticket price and expect it to be attended by loads of families and kids," said Elworthy. "The structure of our ticket prices there was one of the key successes [of the 2007 tournament]."
While South Africa proved to be an outstanding venue for both the World Twenty20 and the IPL, England has a less auspicious track record when it comes to global cricket events. The last major tournament to be staged in the country was the 1999 World Cup, which was memorable for a fizzer of an opening ceremony and a poor showing from the host nation, who were ejected from the competition in the opening round.
Elworthy, however, is adamant that cricket fans in England will flock to the event, even though the Ashes remain the dominant attraction of the summer. "Twenty20 in this country is extremely popular," he said. "Our first set of ticket allocations went out just under a year ago, and over 100,000 tickets were sold out in 48 hours. There are still tickets available, but we expect 95-98% capacity at the key double-headers, and we are well on target in terms of our goals of over 80% attendance across the entire tournament."
"All the venues have been supportive," he added. "Our ticketing strategy didn't want to alienate the current markets and clientele that the venues have, but we wanted to reach new audiences and get new faces to the ground. All the dug-outs and DJ boxes and dance podiums, those have become part of the Twenty20 brand, and they'll be delivered at all these venues."
