Who Are The Favourites To Win The T20 World Cup 2024?

Only 10 days are left for the start of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, which is scheduled to take place from June 2nd in the USA and West Indies for a period of 1 month. It will be the 9th edition of the marquee event that will be played for the first time in USA to promote cricket in America. With the dates getting close to main event inception, the question of who are the favourites to win the T20 World Cup is getting stronger as this time we will be having 20 teams, who will be playing 55 games in West Indies and USA from June 2nd to June 29th, 2024. Through this article, we are going to know which teams are favourites to win the upcoming major event on the basis of their strong team and performances in T20I matches.

Before the start of the Marquee event, every team will be playing warm-up games against  to get ready for the final battle and adapt to the conditions. While talking about the list of ICC warm-up matches, Canada will be locking horns with Nepal in the opening warm-up match taking place at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas on 27 May, 2024. 

1. India 

Team India is the number 1 contender for the upcoming ICC Mens T20 World Cup, as they are coming into this ICC event after a heartbreaking defeat in last year's ODI World Cup against Australia when they lost a match in the finals after winning back-to-back 10 games of the tournament. 

India would definitely try hard to lift this marquee event for the second time after the inaugural edition of the World Cup in 2007 by defeating arch-rivals Pakistan in the finals. Talking about Men in Blue performance in the shortest format of the game, they are in number 1 position in the ICC T20I rankings and the players who are picked in the squad for the main event are coming out in the upcoming tournament after playing 2 months of non-stop cricket in the ongoing Indian Premier League from their respective franchise to get adapt to the conditions, which will definitely help the Indian team while playing in the ICC event.

2. England

England are the defending champions of the ICC event, they will be coming into this game to defend their title among 20 teams. Under the leadership of Jos Buttler, the English team are again looking for probable candidates to win the marquee event by having players who can single-handedly win matches for their team. It has made them one of the strongest teams in the tournament.

Talking about the current form of the England team, the top order looks impressive with having 3 in-form destructive batters i.e. Jos Buttler, Johnny Bairstow and Phil Salt, at the top to open the innings for the England team, who are coming after an impressive season in the ongoing Indian Premier League where they have made their respective IPL teams win single-handedly. The England captain Jos Buttler and Johnny Bairstow are coming out, to the marquee event after scoring a hundred in IPL for Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings.

Meanwhile, in the middle order, they have got Will Jacks, Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone in the middle order, with Sam Curran and Moeen Ali as all-rounders in the squad. After an impressive performance in IPL 2024 from Royal Challengers Bangalore, all the eyes will be on Will Jacks, who will come out as a surprise to other teams with his destructive batting and unorthodox bowling on slow and steady pitches of the USA and West Indies. However, England will miss the experience of Ben Stokes, who has not been picked up in the squad.

Reece Topley, Mark Wood and Jofra Archer will be the pace batteries for the defending champions in the upcoming T20 World Cup.

3. Australia

It would be wrong to not pick Australia in the list of teams who can lift the upcoming T20 World Cup as they are the teams who have won the most number of ICC events till now. Despite not having a great record in the shortest format of the game, Australia can surprise every team when it comes to the World Cup, which they have done till now in every ICC event. The Men in Yellow have just 1 T20 World Cup tournament in the eighth edition in 2022, defeating New Zealand in the finals. However, their morale will be high after clinching a victory in last year's ICC World Cup from India in the finals and emerging as the champions under the Indian conditions.

Talking about the Australian team, they have got a mixed list of players in the squad who have international experience aswell as the young guns who will be playing their debut World Cup for the first time. Mitchell Marsh will be seen leading the Australian squad with experienced players like Pat Cummins, David Warner and Glenn Maxwell.

Players like Mitchell Starc, Jake-Fraser McGurk, Marcus Stonis and Travis Head are coming out in this tournament after impressive performances in the Indian Premier League for their respective teams, which will definitely help them to play in the ICC event. 

The 2023 Player of the Match, Travis Head, has been on the list of top run-getters of the Indian Premier League from Sunrisers Hyderabad franchise. Meanwhile, Marcus Stonis and Mitchell Starc have been the top performers from their team by scoring a hundred and picking 3 wickets in the qualifier 1 against Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Meanwhile, talking about schedule of the T20 World Cup 2024. The Group A of the 2024 T20 World Cup comprises of Pakistan, India, Ireland, Canada and USA while the Group B includes Ashes rivals, England, Australia, Namibia, Oman and Scotland. On the other hand, the Group C consists of New Zealand, West Indies, Afghanistan, Uganda and PNG. The Group D includes the likes of South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Netherlands and Nepal. 

Interestingly, only two teams will qualify from each group for the Super 8 stage of the multi-team T20I competition. The Super 8 stage of the tournament will also consist of two groups with four teams in each group. The first semi-final of the T20 World Cup will be taking place on 27 June, 2024 at the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba, Trinidad while the second semi-final will also be played on the same day at the Providence Stadium in Guyana.