England captain Jos Buttler, whose team are riding high after a confidence-boosting build-up, insisted defending champions Australia were still the team to beat and will be the favourites to win the T20 World Cup starting Sunday.
Australia had beaten New Zealand in the final last year in Dubai to win their maiden T20 World Cup. This time around, Australia will be hosting their first-ever T20 World Cup and Buttler believes that will be their biggest advantage as no other team will know conditions better than the Aaron Finch-led side.
“T20 is one of those games that can be unpredictable, but I think history tells you that, generally, the host nation are slight favourites in big tournaments,” Buttler said in an all-captains’ press conference in Melbourne on the eve of the T20 World Cup.
“Many of us have travelled and played in Australia and know the conditions, but of course no-one is going to know the conditions or be as accustomed to them as the Australian team. They are also reigning champions, so you have to pick them out probably as favourites for the tournaments,” he added.
Interestingly, England played a three-match T20I series against Australia recently which they won 2-0 after the last match was washed out due to rain.
Australia still have an unofficial warm-up game scheduled against India before they enter the World Cup at the Super 12 stage on October 22 in a rematch of last year’s final with New Zealand.
Finch said the players would be given a couple of off days in the lead-up “where there’s no cricket at all to let our guys recharge”.
He also acknowledged that England “definitely outplayed us”.
“With the bat, we were always just one wicket down further than we needed to be over the whole series,” he said.
“In big run chases, you need that one in batter towards the back of the innings and we probably were just falling a little bit short each time with that. All in all, we’re not bad, just a little sharpen up would be nice.”
Despite the series defeat and the gruelling lead-up to the World Cup, Finch said was confident his players would be ready for their tough opener.
“We can’t control what’s already gone,” he said.
“We know how hard the guys train. Each person trained really well individually, and as a group, we trained fantastic.
“It’s just about guys peaking at the right time and not burning out too early.”
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