T20 World Cup 2022: What to expect as matches kick off today

Sri Lanka has played just one international match at Geelong ahead of Sunday's Super 8 clash against Namibia. (Image source: Twitter/T20WorldCup)

The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup starting Sunday (October 16, 2022) in Australia might be a confusing mishmash of a format, but at least one thing that’s common to all International Cricket Council (ICC) events remains present—an India-Pakistan match.

The match, scheduled neatly on Sunday, 23 October, a day before Diwali, will be the showpiece of the event at Australia’s biggest stadium in Melbourne—unless the teams play each other at a later stage as well. When they played in last year’s World T20, Pakistan beat India by 10 wickets, for the first time in 13 ICC limited-overs tournaments. But then we are getting ahead of ourselves.

The first rounds of the 2022 T20 World Cup that begin on Sunday pit eight teams, mostly the rookies, divided into two groups A and B, of which the two top teams from each group will proceed to the next stage. The more established teams lie in wait here, divided into groups 1 and 2, with India and Pakistan in the same group as Bangladesh and South Africa—three teams that traditionally play in green colours. These group matches begin October 22, with Australia taking on New Zealand first and the India-Pakistan match the next day.

To give it a more glamorous description, the A-B group stage is called the Super 8 followed by a Super 12 of six teams each. For those who dip in and out of cricket, the Super 8 includes teams such as Namibia and Scotland, though the Netherlands is the lowest ranked team at 18, which also means there are more than 18 teams that play international cricket.

Why the Super 8 could be exciting—or significant, given the likes of the West Indies and Sri Lanka find themselves in this company of amateurs—requires a look back at the past.

In the last edition of the event, held just last year in the UAE, Namibia (ranked 14th), who beat the higher-ranked Ireland (now at No. 12) and the Netherlands, qualified from their group. Besides Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, who expectedly moved up from the lower to the more prestigious gathering, Scotland too made it through, after beating Bangladesh in their group.

Much has changed since then, in that some of the lesser-known teams have garnered more playing experience. Sri Lanka, ranked eighth and a title winner in 2014, will naturally be expected to qualify. They have never lost to any of their current group mates: UAE, Namibia and the Netherlands.

But the contest would be for the second spot in the group, which becomes difficult to predict. UAE beat Ireland to win the T20 World Cup Qualifier A earlier this year and if a statistical comparison is to be made, they score at a faster rate (8.35 runs an over) than their opponents, Netherlands (7.52) and Namibia (7.50). The most curious element in the UAE team is 16-year-old India-born Aayan Afzal Khan, who made 93 against the West Indies in the Under-19 World Cup this year after coming in to bat at 26-4. UAE went on to win the match, handsomely by 82 runs.

India-born Aayan Afzal Khan (right). (Image: Twitter/ICC)

While the Netherlands have more experience with quality tournaments, having played in four previous T20 World Cups, they have won and lost an equal number of matches to the other two (4-4 vs UAE, 1-1 vs Namibia).

Finally, Namibia, a country with a population of around 2.5 million, lower than our National Capital Region (NCR; 3.2 million), have beaten more pedigreed Zimbabwe in a T20I series this year.

Group B presents a more intriguing combination, with two-time champion (2012, 2016) West Indies pitted against Zimbabwe (rank 11), Ireland (12) and Scotland (15). West Indies’ ranking of seven is in sync with the kind of year they have had—13 losses in T20Is against just seven wins. This stands poorer in comparison to Zimbabwe, who have nine wins in 16 matches, and marginally even to Ireland who have won eight of 20 matches. If recent form is to be considered, Zimbabwe have won seven of their last nine T20I matches, with losses only to better considered teams Bangladesh and Afghanistan. This includes five wins in five in the World Cup Qualifier.

But the most interesting team from the group is Ireland, which beat Afghanistan 3-2 at home in August and seem to hold their own against more established sides. They almost chased down India’s 225 in Dublin in June, losing eventually by four runs. Besides, the Irish have a better record head-to-head against their group teams, Scotland (seven wins to three losses) and Zimbabwe (5-3).

That leaves Scotland, which won all three of its first-round matches at last year’s World Cup in UAE and qualified for the Super 12 there. Their captain Richie Berrington has an impressive T20I record (since 2021) of 471 runs in 15 matches at an average of over 40 with a top score of 82. All-rounder Michael Leask can also swing his bat around a bit, scoring at a strike rate of over 134 since 2021, besides taking a few wickets here and there. But they look the weakest of the lot, making them an unlikely prospect for promotion.

October is an unusual time for cricket in Australia, though it’s spring and the temperature is just right outdoors. But there is also rain—for instance, the third T20I between England and Australia was washed out on Friday. Four World Cup warm-up matches have been abandoned without a ball being bowled. Plus, Australia’s bouncy pitches would be a contrast to the last World Cup in UAE—or indeed the Indian Premier League (IPL), which remains the gold standard for T20 cricket.

A combination of these factors makes this an intriguing event, starting with Sunday’s match between Namibia and Sri Lanka at Kardinia Park in Geelong. It’s a rare regional venue for international cricket in Australia, having hosted just one T20I before in which Sri Lanka beat Australia by two wickets off the last ball. For pedantic statisticians, here’s the latest record—Sri Lanka would become on Sunday the only country to have played two international matches in Geelong.