The king’s return to lift another World title

There was a time in cricket when you just knew that the Australians would come and lift the trophy. The challengers were definitely there but there was no such power that could stop their dominance. Coming back to 2021, no one gave them any chance to do anything. Coming into the tournament, the kangaroos were defeated in all their last five T20I series and the team was in a pretty bad shape as David Warner, Aaron Finch and others were not in a good touch. So what did they do? They went on to lift the World title. Typical Aussie nature, isn’t it?

We will come to the winning team in due course but New Zealand has done it again, haven’t they? In three years, they have played three finals and lost two of them but were only successful against India. Yes, that hurts. The Kiwis are the real underdogs of the cricketing world. Yes, an underdog team can’t play three finals in a row but where else would you put them? The Black Caps are never the favorites to win any tournament but always manage to do good and eventually play the final. This however needs to change. What went wrong on the night of finals? Let’s dissect.

Lose the toss, lose the match. This has been the template whenever a team is playing in conditions that favor the dew. Bowling second is very difficult in these conditions and the opponent is virtually out even before competition. Thus the team batting second gets an advantage and the International council needs to work on this in order to stop this. What’s the solution though? Well, it’s tough to say but is playing in semi-closed stadiums one? A lot of football stadiums are now being held in semi-closed stadiums. This will also help teams to continue their game even if it rains. There are of course disadvantages. The wind, the moisture, everything adds up when it comes to cricket. Thus, stadiums need to be built differently.

Another way to stop this is by playing the games in the evening. The broadcasters may never agree to this but the board needs to be tough, otherwise there will be a lot of teams like New Zealand in the future.

Well, coming back to the game, the Kiwis put up a great total on board. Something that can be defended. However, they should have added some runs in the initial overs. They needed a strong start in order to capitalize and to eliminate the dew factor, they needed 15-20 more runs which they failed to score and that is exactly where they lost the game. This has been the problem for quite some time now. Their strategy works perfectly fine in tests and in ODI’s but when it comes to t20 cricket, they choke because of their slow cricket. Kane Williamson was brilliant last night and took the risk and that’s why they reached a decent total but without that, the Kiwis would have been in trouble right from the start.

The Aussies were sorted as soon as they won the toss. Mitchell Starc went for a lot of runs. That was the only negative thing that happened to them. People often say that scoring anything above 175 is difficult in the finals of a t20 game but what they don’t understand is the game has changed and evolved and nothing really is a safe total anymore.

David Warner’s approach was perfect and because of the start he and Mitchell Marsh gave, Australia were way ahead of their neighboring country right from the start. This is something that the Kiwis needed but couldn’t manage. After the early dismissal of Mitchell, Tim Seifart should have come to bat and he should have been given the freedom. Yes, the lad doesn’t have match practice but Kiwis had to take a chance in order to counter their slow start. They however didn’t.

This has been one fine World Series that we witnessed. From countries like Namibia giving their all to favorites like India, England getting eliminated before making it to the finals and to finally see Australia lift another world title, this tournament was fantastic. Babar Azam in his first T20 World Series became the leading run-scorer of the tournament while David Warner was chosen to be the Man of the tournament. Someone who was dropped from his Indian T20 League team just a month and a half ago. All we can say now is that fine line – Form is temporary, Class is permanent.