Team India captain Rohit Sharma (left) and Pakistan’s skipper Babar Azam. (PTI Photos)
With the evolving countenance of franchise T20 cricket, the ninth edition of the T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the United States could be a potential shape-shifter for the international game.
T20Is are yet to see the same range of hitting which was on show during the recently concluded IPL 2024 season. Besides leading their respective teams in their characteristic styles, the captains will play a crucial role in setting the template in the league stage of the 20-team tournament.
Here’s a statistical brief of the skippers, the milestones in sight and the superlatives that they bring to the Americas:
Age factor
The average age of the 20 captains at the T20 World Cup this year stands at 30.65. Among them, three skippers have crossed 37, with Canada’s Saad Bin Zafar being the oldest at (37y 203d) on the eve of the opener.
Scotland’s Richie Berrington (37y 58d) and India’s Rohit Sharma (37y 31d) are next on the list. Meanwhile, Nepal’s Rohit Paudel (21y 272d) will be the youngest captain in the tournament.
In the six hunt
India skipper Rohit Sharma is on the cusp of raising the bar of his six-hitting prowess on the world stage. Rohit is three short of being the first batter to slam 600 maximums across formats and 10 away from becoming the first batter to hit 200 T20I sixes.
The Babar-Rohit race
Babar Azam and Rohit Sharma will be running a parallel race on the captaincy and batting fronts in the tournament. Babar (3987) recently toppled Rohit (3978) from the second spot in the leading run-getters table in T20Is and will be aiming to catch up with Virat Kohli (4037) up top.
India captain Rohit Sharma and Pakistan captain Babar Azam during the toss. (FILE)
Meanwhile, Rohit is 37 runs short of becoming the second Indian to record 1000 runs in T20 World Cups after Kohli.
While Babar could become the first male captain to win 50 T20Is with four wins in the tournament, Rohit (41) requires one victory to surpass MS Dhoni as the most successful Indian captain in the T20I format.
On the fast lane
Among the captains who have compiled at least 400 runs in the format, West Indies’ Rovman Powell tops the list with a whopping 172.69 strike rate.
Powell is followed by Richie Berrington (150.15), Jos Buttler (149.92), and Rohit Sharma (148.73) among the captains in this World Cup.
The first-timers
12 players will lead their respective teams for the first time at the World Cup. Among the 20 leaders, Kane Williamson is the most experienced captain, heading into his fourth T20 World Cup as New Zealand skipper since 2016.
The all-round captain?
Pakistan’s Mohammad Hafeez is the only captain to have achieved the double of 100 runs and five wickets in an edition of the T20 World Cup. Australia’s Mitchell Marsh could be in the running to better the feat this season, with the likes of Wanindu Hasaranga and Rashid Khan also in the fray.
The perfect spell
Leading the Canadian dream at the T20 World Cup, captain Saad Bin Zafar holds the record for the most economical spell in T20Is. The left-arm spinner bowled a four-over spell, conceding no runs while bagging two wickets (4-4-0-2) against Panama in 2021 – the only such instance in all T20Is.
C & WK
United States’ Monank Patel will join Jos Buttler and the Netherlands’ Scott Edwards as the wicketkeeper-captains in this edition. Overall, Patel will be the 17th keeper-captain across nine T20 World Cups. The 2012 and 2022 editions had seen the most keeper-captains in a season with five apiece.
Bowling benchmark
Former New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori still holds the record for the most wickets by a skipper in a T20 World Cup, with 11 wickets in the inaugural 2007 edition. With at least six bowling captains in this edition, including Rashid Khan and Wanindu Hasaranga, Vettori’s tally might finally be broken this June.
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