The Game changers at the ICC World T20

The fifth edition of the ICC World T20 kickstarted with the upbeat host nation Bangladesh crushing Afghanistan at Mirpur by a massive margin of 9 wickets to avenge the recent loss at the Asia cup. With the major teams yet to get into the action, this edition of the tourney probably is the most open of all the editions, thanks to the well established and competitive T20 cricket leagues in all the leading cricket playing nations providing ample match experience to all the players going into the major event of this magnitude.

Inspite of the fact that this format can throw up surprising and unpredictable results, one can never keep the bookmakers out of the equation, with them tipping Australia and the defending champions West Indies as favourites to go all the way to lift the trophy. Australia, with a lot of success of late, are on a high after beating the English and the Proteas in the recently played T20 series in Australia and South Africa respectively whereas the Calypso Kings conquered the English in the just concluded T20 series on their home turf.

In the four previous editions, it was a different winner every time and this time the battle is ready to get more intense with the other teams throwing in their hats with a big shout .So, only time will tell if this could be an Australian encore or any other team would take the top honours or if the Windies would rewrite history by becoming the first nation to defend the championship successfully.

All the teams have got many potential match winning players in their ranks, who on their day can slay the opposition with their skills and change the course of the game in a blink of an eye. The players to look out for from the major sides :

Australia : Finch, Warner, Watson, Maxwell, Faulkner, Brad Hogg

Bangladesh : Tamim Iqbal, Amanul Haque, Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan

England : Lumb, Hales, Morgan, Buttler, Tredwell

India : Raina, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Jadeja, Mishra

New Zealand : B.McCullum, Anderson, Taylor, N.McCullum, Southee

Pakistan : Ahmed Shehzad, Hafeez, Afridi, Gul, Ajmal

South Africa : Q de Kock, AB de Villiers, Miller, A.Morkel, Steyn (subject to availability)

Sri Lanka : K.Perera, Jayawardene, T.Perera, Mendis, Malinga

West Indies : Gayle, Samuels, Sammy, Narine, Badree