adminAustralia will be aiming to become the first team to possess all three of cricket’s global titles at the same time, but a bigger success will be if the T20 World Cup next month can help the game crack a lucrative market in the United States.
Australia won a hat-trick of one-day World Cups between 1999-2007 and, going by their heady success in recent global events, they are close to recreating that ‘golden era’.
Under Pat Cummins, they won the World Test Championship title and the one-day World Cup last year — beating a formidable India in both the finals. The onus is now on Mitchell Marsh to lead Australia to another successful campaign, which would make them the reigning world champions in all three formats of the game.
It is not going to be a cakewalk of course.
India have not won a global trophy in more than a decade despite dominating the business side of the game and coming agonisingly close on two occasions last year itself.
That they run the world’s richest T20 league and yet have not won a 20-overs World Cup since the inaugural edition in 2007 does not sit well with the fans.
It could well be the last limited-overs World Cup for captain Rohit Sharma and stalwart Virat Kohli and nothing would please their fans more than watching them do the victory lap on June 29 in Bridgetown. — Reuters.
Bongani Ndlovu
Mathew Masinge