What are the latest ICC rankings as the T20 World Cup begins?
Alonso Espeleta |
A World Cup in any sport is always an exciting occurrence for sports fans around the world. It is a chance to see all the best international sides come together, to fight it out to decide which team gets to be crowned as world champions for the next few years.
Most of these tournaments, such as the soccer and rugby world cups (for both men and women) are held only every four years. This helps add to their importance and gives both players and fans a real chance to look forward to these rare events. The recent announcement that FIFA wants to hold a world cup every two years has been met with derision by most, from current and former players to fans pretty much everywhere around the world.
The world of men’s cricket has two major world cups on its calendar, the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, and the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. The first one is a one-day event, where each side bats for 50 overs (an over is 6 deliveries) before switching over, and has a go at bowling. The T20 World Cup is an even shorter format, where each side only has 20 overs of both batting and bowling. Because of this, it means that the batsmen have to run up scores as fast as they can, so will play risky shots, in the hope of scoring either a 4 or a 6.
The T20 World Cup has just begun, with the first round seeing 2 groups of 4 trying to make it through the opening stage before they are placed into the Super 12 round. Here, there are two groups of 6, which are formed of 8 sides who have automatically qualified, alongside the 4 teams who have finished top of in the first round groups.
The T20 cup always offers fans a huge amount of intriguing matchups, high scores, and potential upsets. Often people at home who can’t attend the competition will use Heritage Sportsbook and other online sports betting apps to place bets on the matches.
Given that we are only days away from knowing the full lineup of the Super 12 groups, it could be a good opportunity to look at the current ICC rankings, to see which sides have a good chance of winning the 2021 T20 World Cup, being held in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
Who won the last T20 World Cup?
The previous edition of the T20 World Cup was held in 2016 in India. Given they were the hosts, it was expected that India would win the tournament. However, they only made it as far as the semi-finals, where they were knocked out by the West Indies. It was the West Indies who went on to win the tournament, beating another much-fancied side, England, in the final.
England batted first, scoring 155 runs for 9 wickets, with Joe Root posting the high score of 54 off of 35 balls. Once the two sides swapped, the West Indies won with 4 wickets to spare, reaching a score of 161. Marlon Samuels scored an impressive 85 not out, helping his side to lift the T20 World Cup trophy for the second time.
Where does that place the West Indies on the current ICC rankings?
You’d think that having won the most recent world cup, that the West Indies would be top of the T20 ICC (International Cricket Council) rankings, and would be one of the favourites going into the 2021 tournament. However, if you look at the current rankings, they are all the way down in 9th place. The rankings are worked out as follows; after each match, the total of each team’s points total is divided by a total number of matches played, to give a rating.
The West Indies have played 29 times in the current period, but have only accumulated a rating of 234, which sees them below the likes of Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
Who is top of the ICC rankings?
Right now, England occupies the top spot in the rankings, with an overall rating of 278. This puts them just ahead of India (on 266) Pakistan (261) and New Zealand (257). England’s high ranking is partly in thanks to players like Dawid Malan, who is currently the best-ranked batsman in the world of T20. Malan, alongside other top players England posses such as Jason Roy and captain Eoin Morgan, will be crucial to England’s hopes of winning this year’s T20 World Cup, after their near miss 5 years ago.
Pakistan will be one to watch, as they possess a number of top-ranked batsmen, such as Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. And no one should forget about Australia, as they have a number of top players in their side, such as Aaron Finch, Steve Smith and Pat Cummins.
It is likely that the ICC rankings will change significantly during the T20 World Cup. We’re just glad that it’s only now getting started, and we have over 3 weeks of action to enjoy before the final on the 14th of November.
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