You know what time it is: time to catch up on another episode of Cricket Huddle’s State of Cricket podcast. And this one’s a ripper! The 2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is one we are adjudging “the World Cup of Craziness”. Upsets just happening here and there, everywhere! Looking at the group stage, we had three upsets in Group A and two in Group B. Going into the Super 12, Group 1 only had one upset but Group 2 would end up having four upsets. Those are just the things that did happen, but there were also way too many close calls for comfort. Let’s take a closer look at all this craziness and see what the guys had to add to the discussion.

 Regarding upsets, the Dutch were the team to watch out for. The reason is that they were the lowest-ranked team (17th) to qualify for the World Cup, so any wins they could accumulate would technically count as upsets. They accounted for four of the 11 upsets, as they had two group stage and two Super 12 wins. They may only be 17th in the world but their terrific form has gotten them a direct entry into the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, thus forgoing the individual regional qualifiers! Namibia and Scotland each got off to fast starts in the group stage, knocking off Zimbabwe and West Indies respectively, but that’s all they could do in this edition of the World Cup. West Indies were on the wrong end of upsets twice, as they also lost to Ireland to get eliminated from the rest of the proceedings. The luck of the Irish would not go their way in the rest of the Super 12, but they did get a memento with a DLS win over England! The Chevrons (Zim) and Proteas (SA) would get the last two upsets in the Super 12, winning against Pakistan and India respectively. India is ranked as the best T20I team, so any losses for them would technically be upsets.

 As for close calls, UAE nearly lost to Namibia in Group A (seven-run UAE win) and Ireland had to take their game against Scotland to the last over in their six-wicket win. After 10 of the first 15 Group 1 games would go swimmingly well (three were rained out), things would get really tense for the home team Aussies and the Poms (Eng) to end the Super 12. Australia would win by four runs against Afghanistan to keep their hopes alive, while England took their game against Sri Lanka to 19.4 overs to win by four wickets and qualify for the knockouts themselves. India-Pakistan was a super close game, with a result not decided until the last ball of the game (India won by four wickets). The Dutch and the Chevrons almost beat the Tigers (Ban) in a nine-run loss and a three-run loss respectively. Imagine the chaos that would’ve ensued! Bangladesh would also lose to India in a close five-run DLS loss. Due to South Africa’s shock loss, either Pakistan or Bangladesh would have qualified for the knockout stages.

 With all that out of the way, here’s what else you can look forward to. I do agree that the times were a bit odd to wake up to if you wanted to watch the game live. Living in the US, the latest time we had to wake up to watch an India game was at 7 AM ET, while the earliest was 3 AM ET. Most of India’s matches were at 3 AM, though… There were some 11 PM ET games and one 8 AM ET game. Suryakumar “SKY” Yadav just showing up bowlers was a sight to see in this World Cup. Just absolutely world-class batting, and he was rewarded with the ranking of best T20I batter due to his heroics. Australia continued the tradition/curse of hosts not being able to do much, becoming the sixth team to not be able to qualify for the knockout stages of the tournament. There was also a suggestion for a new format of cricket (which I found very interesting) and it seems like England are the favorites to take the title home.

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