A brief stats analysis of both teams that will contest in SF2 inongoing T20IWC
We start with England. The most unpredictable team. The reason why they are not predictable because unlike before, they rely now on their fast bowlers and specialist spinners to dent their opponents.
The motto of Archer, Overton and co to bowl shorter of length in line with stumps, not giving much room for batsmen to manoeuvre. The spinners responsibility is to bowl accurately with varied pace. Since Bazball took over as their coach, England always relied on their power-hitting batting in white-ball cricket to win matches. They had huge success against lowly ranked teams, but against top teams their success has been less than 50% . In this World Cup we now see a slight change of tactics from their bowlers.
On the other side, the intent of their top order batsmen remains the same. It gets better down in the middle order though… (see partnerships tables)
India on the other hand, are the firm favourites to win this World Cup.
On paper this Indian squad is probably the best T20 SQUAD in recent times, covering all base from spin to fast, it features few players who can keep wickets, combined with varied pair of openers. The fast-bowling group is led by Jasprit Bumrah, who is well supported by Arshdeep Singh, Hardik Pandya and Mohd Siraj. The middle-order is strongest which consolidates inconsistent openers.
However Abhishek Sharma’s batting form is a concern. It has spoiled the value of their opening partnerships. If needed there are few who can switch his place and Abhishek can slip down the order. Now they know what NZ can chase, its sensible for India to look to score big (in case they chose to bat first). And one way to go about is to get a significant amount of runs at the top. Like England they lost 14 wickets in power play @9.46 r/o.
In Bowling front – I would like to see Bumrah opening with Hardkik, as Arshdeep has been less effective with newball in this World Cup. Its time for India to make Arshdeep viable in all phase of a match!.
Conclusion – India are hot favorites, and playing in Mumbai will only boost their confidence sky high. England on the other hand have been unpredictable, and entirely underdog, and if they have bad day, then it could be one-sided contest, similar to first semi-finals (NZ-SA)
Below gfx is overall performance of matches played in Mumbai in this World Cup. The stats are divided into 4 phases of a match.
There is an interesting stats in this table below. Unlike other venues in India, for some reason maximum wickets(29) has fallen in power play at Wankhede!. Hence there is 13.52 % of overs (< 4.00 / at least one wkt), that explains 2.00% of maidens as well.
