India:
Previous Performance:
A blast of a performance in the 2007 edition of the ICC World T20 but damp squib in 2009. Won it in the first edition, and lost woefully in the Super Eights of the second tournament.

Strengths:
It has to be the captaincy of MS Dhoni. In the previous edition, it was for the first time since Dhoni had become the captain that one saw him lose his cool, and in turn, his side capitulated to one loss after another. But as mentioned, that was also a learning experience for the Indian captain and he seems to have learnt from that experience.

Weaknesses:
Their bowling is a definite one. Apart from Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh, the bowling lacks the experience or incisiveness to knock out the opposition, and with the likes of Vinay Kumar having yet to play an international, it also affects the back-up bowling staff for the side.

Then again, the absence of Virender Sehwag to an IPL-injury will hurt the Indians as much as it would be hurting him now!

England:

Previous Performance:
One of the more consistent teams in the competition; they have been ousted in the Super Eights round on both the occasions!

Strengths:
One needs to be careful while assessing their strengths, because England has, for years remained a mediocre team in any of the formats of the game. But one does feel that under the captaincy of Paul Collingwood, there is refreshness in the side, along with the presence of youngsters adding to the hope that England could outperform – their own previous record!

Weaknesses:
It has been their inability to come out trumps at crucial junctures in matches that has caused much grief. England’s biggest woe is their inability to play a unit and almost exhibit a lack of discipline to finish off matches.

Afghanistan:
They are the babies of international cricket, but in a short span of 2-3 years since they started playing international cricket, they have surprised everybody with their results. They finished fifth in the World Cup qualifiers and narrowly missed making it to the World Cup to be played next year, but lifted the ICC World T20 Qualifying tournament by beating Ireland in the finals.

They have never played at the international stage against a Test-playing nation, and against India and South Africa, will be a big test. They may go on to lose, but the world eyes will be on them to see, how well they perform at the biggest stage of international T20 cricket.

Afghanistan win the ICC World T20 Qualifiers

Romance in sport is what drives the fans to the grounds. And makes them flick their television sets on more eagerly than any other time. A generation or two onwards, when the fans look back at cricket as we know it today, they would probably be savouring the emergence of a new powerhouse in the international cricket, Afghanistan!

For the time from when the Afghanistan team had won the Division Five title in ICC’s qualifiers for the World Cup of 2011, their story has been seeped in romance, grit, gumption, and to say the least, glory. They had narrowly missed out on qualifying for the World Cup 2011, but thanks to that performance, they had managed to qualify for the ICC World T20 Qualifiers which was played in Dubai recently.

There were ten teams in that tournament, and only two out of those were to qualify for the ICC World T20 in West Indies to be played in April this year. In the competition were the teams like Ireland, who have played in the World Cup before and qualified for the Super Eights in 2007, Netherlands, who have not only played in the World Cup, but also in the 2009 edition of the ICC World T20 and beaten England, Kenya, who have featured in the semi-finals of the 2003 edition of the World Cup and others like Canada, UAE and Scotland, all of whom have done their bit at the highest level.

So, while Afghanistan’s record before the tournament would have put them amongst the top four favourites, they were up against some fierce competition across the board.

And not only did they pass the examination, but they also aced them with wins over Ireland, Scotland, USA and UAE in the league stage. This ensured their place in the finals of the tournament, and more importantly, a slot in the ICC World T20 to be played in West Indies later this year. The cherry on the cake was then provided by Nowroz Mangal and Mohammad Shahzad, both of whom assisted the side in a facile win over the Irish in the finals of the tournament, to lift the trophy as well! In turn, this gave them a right to play India and South Africa in the World T20.

Ireland, on the other hand, had qualified for the finals after their first match loss to Afghanistan. They beat Scotland, USA, UAE and Netherlands, en route the finals, and had it not been for a rather arduous schedule, they would have probably done much better than they actually did.

Like all of the other teams, they played their first three league matches in three days, and qualifying for the Super Fours meant that they had to play their remaining two games off consecutive days as well. So, after featuring in five matches in as many days, they qualified for the finals, which was to be played on the same day as the final league game; ensuring back-to-back games for the Irish, in a span of a couple of hours!

The coach, Phil Simmons, a former West Indian all-rounder was obviously an unhappy man at the scheduling, but would have taken heart from the fact that they qualified for their second successive ICC World T20. Last year, they had played India and Bangladesh in the first round, and while they lost to the Indians, they had bundled Bangladesh out of the tournament and qualified for the second round. This time around, they face West Indies and England in the first round of the tournament.

I may be thinking far, but the romance that I was alluding to in sport may not be over. While expecting the Afghan side to beat India and South Africa may sound a bit far-fetched, they may give the two sides a run for their money. However, what could even be more probable is that Ireland could surprise either of West Indies or England in the first round to enter the second! That will be some day.

Looks like the duo has been declared joint winners eh? No, that is just posing for the camera ops, but, to be frank, given the things both teams have gone through in the last couple of months, won’t it be a bad idea to do so!?

The last such major tournament which had seen the two teams being declared winners together was the Champions Trophy of 2002, when India and Sri Lanka played the same game twice over, and yet, couldn’t complete it! And no, they did not resume it from where it had been left off on the previous day, but actually went on to restart it; which clearly said that the administrators had lost their heads while framing the rules.

Had such a rule existed in the 1999 World Cup – in England – one can be rest assured that half the games would have been registered as no results through the duration of the tournament!

Coming back to the game in question, Pakistan has been quarantined in the cricketing world after being termed unsafe for travellers, while Sri Lanka had been involved in an unfortunate terrorist attack and have been no better in terms of being terrorism-ravaged.

The picture makes perfect cricket-romantic sense to me!