The ongoing ICC men’s T20 World Cup has proved to be one of its kind in its 15-year-long history where the so-called ‘underdogs’ have pulled off huge upsets against the top teams of the world challenging the conventional wisdom of any cricket viewer. Before the World Cup began, there were talks that logically from the qualifiers Sri Lanka and West Indies would be the sure-short teams that would qualify while Ireland and Zimbabwe would be the next in line putting up a good fight.
Viewers and even the so-called cricket experts or pundits had forgotten that Afghanistan which is considered to be a fairly new team making a mark on the sport at the international level had qualified ahead of the West Indians and Sri Lankans which together share three two world cup trophies.
The first match of the group stage itself was enough to provide a big shock to the cricketing world. The recent Asia cup champions Sri Lanka who had clinically defeated India and Pakistan were facing Namibia, a team whose five players too cannot be named by people who call themselves cricket fanatics. It was expected that the Lankan lions would steamroll the Namibian team in what would be a purely unbalanced contest. Talks were around the fact that it would be a great ‘experience’ for the Namibian team to play against a quality side like Sri Lanka in a tournament like the World Cup at an intimidating venue like Australia.
Embracing the white noise around the match, the Namibians not only had positives to take from the match but against all odds, they defeated Sri Lanka by fifty-five runs which is as good as an innings defeat in a test match. Namibia played courageous cricket as a unit first reaching 160 while batting first and then restricting Sri Lanka to 108, courtesy of a great all-round performance by Jan Frylinck who scored 44 runs and took two wickets. The first match of the world cup itself set the tone for what was going to be a great festival in Australia proving to be a treat to watch for cricket fans all across the world.
While people were still recovering from this shocking match, the next day itself the only two-time T20 world cup champions the ‘mighty’ West Indies lost to Scotland by forty-two runs, again a hefty margin of defeat indicating a clinical and all-round performance by Scotland bringing them a decisive victory and not a close ‘lucky’ one. Four days later, Ireland thrashed the West Indies handing them a defeat by 9 wickets and sending them back home, from the World Cup.
These defeats were such a big scar on West Indian cricket that Cricket West Indies President Ricky Skerritt vowed that there would be a ‘thorough post-mortem of the team’s deeply disappointing performance’. This particularly shows the ego of a cricketing nation that gets hurt if you lose to associate nations that you start questioning your own team instead of addressing that your opponents played well and should be appreciated.
As the World Cup started, people using their defence mechanism claimed that the upsets had happened at the group stage but at the Super 12 stage, the ‘weak teams’ would stand no chances against quality sides such as India, England, Australia, New Zealand, and Pakistan just to get proved wrong again. The first turnaround happened when the 2019 world cup champions England lost to Ireland by five runs under the DLS method in a rain-affected match in a close thriller. Ireland repeated their 2011 charm against England putting a setback to their semi-final qualification chances.
The biggest upset of this World Cup happened on 27 October 2022 when Zimbabwe defeated Pakistan by one run, who were considered to be sure-short qualifiers from the second group almost confirming their return home without playing the semi-final. A cricket board that was suspended in 2019 for government interference and had gone burst to playing the world cup after three years and sending Pakistan out of the tournament came a long way to prove what they were made of recovering their fall which had come after a huge rise.
Other understated teams like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Netherlands also put up a great show playing quality cricket and making people recognize and appreciate their presence. The viewership for the India-Netherlands match was as good as the India-Pakistan match showing the turning tables in cricket on the world stage.
This World Cup proved to be a platform for the so-called weak teams which aren’t even brought into consideration during cricket discussions to make their presence felt and attract viewership and pose tough competition which would compel even the ICC to work more to provide them with greater exposure and bilateral series with competitive sides regularly. As the trend is becoming visible, the coming World Cups would become more and more competitive with little breathing space and there would be no room for complacency against any side that could prove to be costly.
Written by Arhaan Siddiqui
Edited by Tanisha Shah
