6 players who shone at World T20 and will shine at the IPL
It is amazing how each IPL starts in the aftermath of some major tournament and people think, ah, it would just lead to exhaustion and audience burn-out. And yet, each season the IPL proves everyone wrong, with an ‘I told you, so’ goofy grin.
The World T20 has just been completed and we can be rest assured that the carnival is just getting hotter, brighter and livelier. The monochromatic uniforms will be out as teams will be garbed in multi-coloured jerseys of their franchises playing with players who were rivals just a few days ago.
Amidst all this, there is almost an air of anticipation over who will do well and who will just blow the IPL away. Some players finished the World T20 in red hot form and will continue to do so for their franchises. Well, at least that is the expectation considering it will be unfathomable that someone could lose his form within a span of a week.
Here, we will look at a few players who had sensational World Cups and are expected to be the torchbearers for their teams. Samuel Badree who did brilliantly at the WT20 didn’t make it to the list as it is still not sure if he will recover from his shoulder injury in time to play for RCB.
Virat Kohli
The blue-eyed boy of the Indian cricket team ended World T20 as Man of the Series despite India not making it to the Final. The Indian Test team skipper won two matches for India all on his own, turning possible defeats into emphatic victories against high quality bowling sides like Australia and Pakistan.
He even managed to top-score in the semi-final against West Indies but he couldn’t pull it off one last time – after all, he was batting first and there was only so much in his hand when batting first. Probably a little let down by his bowlers, Virat, who finished WT20 with 273 runs, second highest, at an average of 136.5 and a strike-rate of 146.77 with 3 half-centuries, won’t be short of motivation.
Royal Challengers Bangalore, despite having a great team has never won the IPL and that will egg the ferocious skipper on. Given he has some real super-stars in his team, it will be unbelievable if RCB don’t end up this year as one of the last two or three teams standing.