The 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is set to bowl off on June 1 in Dal­las, Texas, with the USA play­ing against Cana­da. Un­be­liev­ably, that is the open­ing of a World Cup crick­et game. The West In­dies play the sec­ond match the day af­ter against Papua New Guinea.

Twen­ty teams will par­tic­i­pate in this year’s tour­na­ment and will be di­vid­ed in­to four groups of five. The top two teams in each group will move to a Su­per Eight phase, where the teams will be split in­to two groups of four. The top two in each group will then make their way to the semi­fi­nals, fol­lowed by the fi­nal. Sim­ple and very straight­for­ward with­out too many com­pli­ca­tions.

West In­dies is in Group C to­geth­er with Afghanistan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Ugan­da, a group that should not present too many prob­lems for the West In­dies. No doubt, New Zealand will be the team to beat in the group led by the classy Kane Williamson. They have a tal­ent­ed squad that could chal­lenge any team in the world. They have some gift­ed all-rounders and match-win­ning bowlers who, on any giv­en day, can de­fend what­ev­er to­tal their bats­men score.

An­oth­er dan­ger­ous op­po­nent in West In­dies’ group is Afghanistan and if they play their cards right, they too, can com­pete with the best the op­po­si­tion can throw at them. Their skip­per Rashid Khan, who has been around since he was a teenag­er, is on­ly 25 years old and can ar­guably be con­sid­ered the best leg-spin­ner in the game to­day. Their bat­ting is ad­ven­tur­ous and fear­less, and they are not afraid to take the at­tack on the op­po­si­tion bowlers. To­geth­er with Khan, Mu­jeeb Ur Rah­man will present many prob­lems for the bats­men. The West In­dies will have to de­feat at least ei­ther the Afghans or the Ki­wis to ad­vance in the tour­na­ment, as I ex­pect them to de­feat Ugan­da and Pa­pa New Guinea with rel­a­tive ease.

In­dia and Pak­istan lock heads in Group A, while Eng­land and Aus­tralia clash in Group B, but all four should come through un­scathed and qual­i­fy for the Su­per Eight. In Group D, South Africa, Sri Lan­ka and Bangladesh should fight for the two spots in that group; how­ev­er, in tour­na­ments like these, there is al­ways a fly in the oint­ment com­ing to spoil a seem­ing­ly ef­fort­less par­ty. Though the prob­a­bil­i­ty is quite low, don’t be sur­prised if a small­er na­tion comes through and qual­i­fies for the Su­per Eight.

All the squads seem to be at full strength, with Aus­tralia caus­ing the biggest stir by sur­pris­ing­ly leav­ing out Steve Smith, but I would still say they must be one of the ear­ly favourites to take the ti­tle. I’m hap­py to see Jofra Archer back in the Eng­land squad af­ter a lengthy in­jury set­back, and I hope he stays fit for the ben­e­fit of the tour­na­ment.

Re­view­ing the West In­dies squad, I would sug­gest that, by and large, the se­lec­tors have done a good job. Most of the play­ers se­lect them­selves. Bat­ting-wise, Bran­don King is con­fi­dent and pos­i­tive at the top of the or­der; Shai Hope has trans­formed him­self in­to a good T20 play­er; Nicholas Pooran, hope­ful­ly, we can see the best of him in this World Cup; Rov­man Pow­ell can fin­ish an in­nings well and is show­ing good lead­er­ship qual­i­ties; John­son Charles pos­si­bly went to Nepal on tri­al but has re­ceived the nod over Kyle May­ers. I would have gone for May­ers be­cause of his abil­i­ty with the ball to give the team a cou­ple of overs.

Sher­fane Ruther­ford is still rel­a­tive­ly new to in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et with 12 T20 games to his name, but he has the abil­i­ty to change the course of a match. On the oth­er hand, Shim­ron Het­my­er, who we all know has the abil­i­ty, is so in­con­sis­tent that you don’t have a clue as to which Het­my­er will show up on the day.

The all-rounders have more or less picked them­selves. Ja­son Hold­er needs to show some lead­er­ship qual­i­ties as a play­er. He needs to lead from the front with both bat and ball, as well as with his catch­ing. Ros­ton Chase has im­proved as a T20 play­er, and if giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty and he does well in the ear­ly games, he could play a piv­otal role with both his bat and his off-spin. Ro­mario Shep­herd is a big hit­ter with the bat if he gets go­ing, and once he can con­trol his line and length with the ball, he can be a use­ful as­set to the team. An­dre Rus­sell has been se­lect­ed for his ex­pe­ri­ence and what he is ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing at the high­est lev­el. It will sure­ly be his last hur­rah, so he must be hop­ing to go out with a mul­ti­tude of fire­works.

In the bowl­ing de­part­ment, some are quite ca­pa­ble of peg­ging back the op­po­si­tion. Alzarri Joseph, on his day, can be as quick as any­body in the world, but he seems to get up­set at times, and when this hap­pens, his bowl­ing is all over the place and he leaks runs. Hope­ful­ly, he can man­age his emo­tions. Gu­dakesh Motie has be­come not on­ly a good left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner but al­so a good crick­eter. His field­ing and catch­ing have im­proved and his line and length are sec­ond to none. The oth­er left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner is Akeal Ho­sein, who, like Motie, has good con­trol. It may be a toss-up if the se­lec­tors play both left-arm spin­ners or just go with one, which would make for healthy com­pe­ti­tion. In ad­di­tion, it would mean that who­ev­er plays the first game will have to work hard to keep his place.

The fi­nal se­lec­tion which would have sur­prised many of you is Shamar Joseph. He has been se­lect­ed for his form in the Aus­tralian Test se­ries, but as we are all aware, the T20 for­mat is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. It is a gam­ble the se­lec­tors have tak­en but in my es­ti­ma­tion, it is a gam­ble well worth tak­ing. He bowls fast and ac­cu­rate­ly, and his en­thu­si­asm alone in­jects much-need­ed team spir­it in­to the squad. He should be giv­en the new ball, and he can make an ear­ly break­through in tan­dem with Alzarri Joseph and put the op­po­si­tion un­der pres­sure. Time will tell.

In ret­ro­spect, West In­dies stands a good chance of win­ning the World Cup, but they will have to be at the top of their game. Aus­tralia, In­dia, New Zealand, and Pak­istan will take some beat­ings, but in crick­et, es­pe­cial­ly T20 crick­et, what mat­ters most is the day.