In the immortal phrases of Brenda from Bristol, not one other one. Between 17 October 2021, the beginning of the match within the United Arab Emirates, and eight March 2026, the date of this yr’s last, 4 T20 World Cups may have been squeezed into 4 years, 4 months and 19 days.
If they arrive alongside extra frequently even than British basic elections – to which Brenda produced her timeless response in 2017 – they at the very least have extra attention-grabbing outcomes: the previous 5 have had 5 totally different winners and the previous three six totally different finalists. What’s extra, although not a lot time has handed because the final one ended with India beating South Africa in Barbados, it appears to have been lengthy sufficient for the sport to shift right into a recent and exhilarating new gear.
It’s too quickly to be drawing conclusions in regards to the state of the sport in 2026, however in 21 T20 internationals within the first month of this yr 6,960 runs had been scored at 9.13 an over – a massively larger scoring charge than any earlier yr. England scored at 9.91 an over in 2025, their finest determine, and of the Check-playing nations solely Bangladesh, who’re not on the match, Australia and West Indies didn’t both break their run-scoring report in 2025 or set themselves on target to take action this yr.
The report for batting strike charges within the Indian Premier League was damaged in 2023, once more in 2024 and once more in 2025. The determine for this yr’s Huge Bash was down barely on final yr’s report, however nonetheless above each different yr. The 2025 tournaments sit second within the rankings for Pakistan’s PSL and the Caribbean Premier League within the West Indies, and first in Bangladesh’s BPL and England’s Blast.
Not counting 2005 and 2006, when hardly any had been performed, within the first six years of T20 internationals, three groups efficiently chased greater than 200 to win video games. It has occurred twice this yr and in matches between Check-playing nations thrice in 2025 (whereas a number of rungs down the ladder Gibraltar and Bulgaria managed to do it thrice in 4 days in Sofia in August).
Six of the seven highest T20 worldwide totals have been scored because the final World Cup, with England’s epic 304 for 2 in opposition to South Africa at Previous Trafford in September solely ok for third on the checklist. Earlier than June 2025, there was just one collection when a scoring charge above 11 an over was sustained all through; previously eight months there have been 4, all however one between groups large enough to be at this World Cup. In brief, the previous 13 months have produced a sustained acceleration in scoring velocity, in home and worldwide fixtures.
So there may be each cause to anticipate the motion coming over the following 5 weeks to be sooner, extra livid, extra epically mindless than ever. The one drawback with the format, as long as you want your sport epically mindless, is that one group has merely turn into too good at it.
No facet have defended the T20 World Cup nor received it at house. However India have each attainable benefit: they are going to play each recreation at house, after Pakistan had been ordered by their authorities to not play the fixture that might have compelled them to journey to Sri Lanka on 15 February, and they’re unfathomably good.
This format is wildly unpredictable, with video games susceptible to being determined in a few key moments, and sometimes by little greater than likelihood, however India have such an abundance of high quality they’ve nearly taken luck out of it. For the reason that final World Cup last they’ve performed 41 T20s and misplaced six, successful 31. At house they’ve received 14 out of 17.
After they performed the June 2024 last Abhishek Sharma was but to make his worldwide debut, and as they go into this match he’s the world No 1 batter, the most well liked property within the recreation. In January, regardless of being dismissed for a duck in two of his 5 innings, Sharma scored 182 runs and averaged 45.5. He confronted 73 balls. In opposition to New Zealand in Guwahati he scored a 14-ball half-century.
His teammate Shivam Dube scored a 15-ball half-century in opposition to the identical opponents three days later, which implies 5 of the six quickest T20 half-centuries in India’s historical past have been scored previously yr, three of them previously two months. To take that world, of the 246 T20 worldwide half-centuries to have been scored off 23 balls or fewer, 57 – very almost 1 / 4 – have come because the begin of 2025.
After India and an enormous chasm of full vacancy the place a real rival may be, the following most spectacular main nation because the begin of final yr – a feat all of the extra exceptional as a result of it has in some way been achieved actually fairly unimpressively – is England. After wrapping up a collection win in Sri Lanka with victory within the second match in Kandy they’d received 10 of their previous 17 video games whereas scoring at 9.86 an over, sooner even than India’s 9.73.
Although Brendon McCullum has led them via a depressing winter, marked by gamers being freed to bask in disappointing decision-making on and off the pitch, the 2022 champions get pleasure from realizing they can’t face India or Australia till the semi-finals on the earliest.
However Australia are the bookmakers’ second favourites, which doesn’t replicate the damage disaster that has dominated out Pat Cummins and compelled Josh Hazlewood to stay in Sydney initially the match, however does replicate their world rating and the truth that they’re Australia and this can be a World Cup.
Bangladesh’s absence, after asserting a number of weeks from the beginning of the match they might refuse to play in India – the one Bangladeshi group that was keen to come back, its journalists, was shamefully refused accreditation en masse – and the obvious lack of Pakistan’s encounter with India, the game’s most high-profile and profitable recreation, have tarnished upfront the status this match is about to make. On this sport, chaos and calamity are by no means removed from the floor, however on this format, and at this second, the following few weeks promise to be significantly wild.
