The former Australian captain Steve Smith reckons that the Indian cricket team is the clear favorite to win the ongoing T20 World Cup in the UAE, with the skillset that they have got in the squad.
According to Steve Smith, the Indian squad has got all bases covered, whether it comes to batting or bowling. And secondly, all of India’s first-choice players have had plenty of game time in the recently finished IPL as well. So, they are all acclimatized to the UAE conditions, which are actually very similar to the conditions they face at home.
Steve Smith thinks the Indian team has some serious matchwinners
“They’re a terrific side, they’ve got all bases covered and some serious match-winners. They’ve all been playing in these conditions the last couple of months with the Indian Premier League (IPL). So they’ll be used to that,” Steve Smith said while addressing the press after the game.
India and Australia went head-to-head in their second warm-up game last evening, and it turned out to be an extremely easy victory for the Indian team. The Indian bowlers chipped away with regular wickets and restricted Australia to a below-par score, and then the Indian vice-captain Rohit Sharma scored a match-winning fifty at the top of the order to get the job done for India.
India had actually rested two of their first choice bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, for this warm up game and Hardik Pandya was not fit to bowl either. So, they had only two fast bowlers to play with, but at no point of time, it seem as if Australia could dominate a slightly weakened Indian attack.
Steve Smith was the only Australian batsman who seemed to bat with some amount of comfort against the spinners and scored a half-century. Marcus Stoinis batted for a decent amount of time as well. But, apart from those two, all the other Australian batsmen struggled to find their timing.
