England won the last T-20 World Cup while Australia won the one before and both former champions will be involved in an epic clash in Barbados on Sunday.
Barbados is the home for some of the finest West Indian cricket talents. Barbados’ population is less than 300,000 but look at the cricket greats this tiny island has produced. Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Clyde Walcott, Sir Everton Weeks, Sir Garfield Sobers, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner, to name a few, all came from Barbados.
Both sides are equally matched. More importantly both sides have a point to prove so they will be at the top of their game.
Australia for example were favourites in the 2022 edition. They were in fact defending champions. At home, they were expected to go all the way. But they did not even make it beyond the second round. The least you would have expected is for them to make it to the semis.
England on the other hand entered last year’s 50 over World Cup as defending champions but they were so pathetic that they ended up seventh in a ten-nation tournament.
There was no knee jerk reaction from either side and both have retained most of their players who took part in that competition.
The pressure is of course on England because their game against Scotland was rained off and they had to share points.
Both teams, however, are expected to go through to the second round as Oman, Namibia and Scotland are the other teams in the group.
