“The way he has blossomed in the last few years he is only getting better and better as a batsman,” Afridi told Sunday’s Times of India. “If Tendulkar had played in this World Cup I am sure he would have made a big impact. If he is not playing… it is certainly a big advantage for other teams. “I think even in T20 cricket you need to bat properly and at times even playing out 20 overs is a big challenge for a team. You need to play orthodox cricket.”

Secondly, we all know that in World Cup, no one is getting over a US$ 1.00 Million for a six week stint, so its fine if someone plays IPL but not the T20 WC

There is an age old expression, Cricket by chance, Football by force and hockey by practice. So, it is not just the T20 format but, the whole game in every format is by chance and a lot to do with luck.

NEW DELHI: Indian star batsman Sachin Tendulkar is busy breaking records in cricket field and off the field his achievements are being hailed in the country. In recognition of his feats, The Maharashtra government has announced building of a museum in his honour. The museum will be based on the life and career of the master cricketer Tendulkar will be second cricketer after the legendary Sir Donald Bradman that a museum will be built on his cricket achievements. Tendulkar recently accomplished the milestone of becoming the first ever player to crack a one-day international double ton. The Little Master holds the records of making the most runs in Test and One-day International cricket besides scoring the highest number of centuries in these forms of cricket.

The IPL experience may have been good for some domestic Indian players such as R. Jadeja, Badrinath, Mishra, Ohja, Vijay, Vinay etc., but players like Ishant Sharma, his performance was negative. Like Sohail Tanvir excelled in the first IPL but, that was his downfall after that and he never bowled that well after that purple hat. Likewise, for Pakistan Imran Nazir after scoring that 100/42 in the ICL did not perform at all. Although his performance has always been erratic like Afridi’s but, Afridi is more versatile and maintained his spot because of his bowling and because he became a regular feature (Malik dropped him a few times) his batting performance also improved and the most important thing is he excelled when it was needed most.

However, if India has won the second T20 WC also, neither you nor the Indian fans would have had such low morale about T20 but, because they could not even reach semis in the previous one that went totally against their expectations there is a sudden change in feelings, I can understand that. Having said that, there are a lot of hopes from Pakistan under Afridi’s captaincy but, the results may not be the same as before.

Ahmad Shahzad who scored 80 odd runs a few days ago against Pakistan A, he has now been included in the reserve squad on the pretext that Mohammad Yasin, another rookie has reportedly been injured !

In my opinion, Salman Butt, Khalid Latif and Misbah ul Haq should not have been in the squad and Yasir Arafat must have been in the reserve list. They should have included Shahzaid Hasan Khan in place of Butt and Imran Nazir in place of Khalid Latif.

What you said about some of the Indian fans expectation that IPL will improve their teams performance in T20 WC last time is true, I think many fans and even experts thought so, including myself to an extent. After all they were playing so much T20 cricket that it is expected to improve their experience. However, it turned out that the WC matches were different ball game, and all the IPL experience did not help.

Having seen that, I think then people realize that IPL experience cannot be relied up on, moreover, India has not done really great in T20 at international level after that either, they have done OK, but the gap between them and other teams narrows in T20 compared to ODI and Test.

I look at their performance and give them best chance in Test matches, followed by ODI, and lastly T20.

This is because when the game becomes shorter it becomes more of luck. Case in point Indian teams record in Test, ODI, and T20 in the last 2 years. If you look at same opponents vs. India you will see that India are able to dominate them in Tests, little less in ODI, and it becomes a toss up in T20.

So, it is based these facts that I am keeping expectation low for Indian team in T20 WC. If they win, well and good, but nothing shout from rooftop. I still won’t consider it same as winning the ODI WC, or winning a Test series in SA or Aus. These are the real challenges. That said, I know lot of Indian went overboard after the first T20 WC win, and similarly lot of Pakistanis went overboard after last year too. This is just the way sub-continental people are.

INDIA has announced their 15 man squad for the WC T20 sans Tendulkar, Ishant Sharma and Virot Kohli. Following are the players selected for the WC.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag (vice-capt), Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Dinesh Karthik, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Vinay Kumar