CRINNIT

In the right place, at the right time.  

There is no single formula for success. If that were the case, everybody would have won the World Cup by now!  Cricket remains fiercely competitive. This T20 World Cup 2026 has been no different.  Winning multinational tournaments is what every team aims for.

Now that the ICC is generous enough to host a world tournament every other year, the chances of more teams competing for the title increase if they are well-prepared.  Apart from the dramatic disparity in quality between top nations and developing teams, many other factors influence these matchups.  

Matches are not decided only based on the decisions made on the field. As we know, there’s more to what happens in a game of cricket than what happens inside the stadium. Anybody can win on a given day if they get the composition and execution right.  Matches don’t often start when the umpire signals play; to some extent, the results are fairly decided way before it. Cue the individual brilliance on show.  

You could have a batter who strikes at 170 in a T20 game, but what exactly is the use if you send him when you are reeling at 20/3? A huge chunk of teams have lost trophies simply because of player mispositioning and picking the wrong replacements. Let’s dissect it a bit!  

What does it indicate? Why is it Important?

Combination is one factor that differentiates your team from the rest.   

When you have a core group of players, building your team around them becomes a lot easier and more sustainable in the long run. Now add the role definition: building your team is like fixing a puzzle that’s nearly complete.

With a core group of players assembled and assigned set responsibilities, picking the rest would ideally rely on bringing in the missing pieces.

This creates a system—a system that outlives flashy brilliance. Whenever a team fields a playing XI selected on the basis of a set system, with appropriate changes based on the playing conditions and opposition, which is always secondary, it will always stand a better chance of winning.   

Where Do Teams Get it Wrong?

As easy as it may sound, it isn’t always straightforward. With big names on your bench, you would ideally want to slot them in, and that there, exactly over there, is when you would be heading in the wrong direction.

Don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken; don’t try to accommodate a team based on one player, or two, for that matter.

If you stuck to your plan and built a team based on the brand of cricket you want to play, you wouldn’t be too bothered about slotting in the right players. The moment your focus shifts is when you invite problems.

Having sufficient cover is where it all lies. Replace an opener with another opener, replace a fast bowling all-rounder with another. Never mismatch the two. CSK won the 2023 IPL by not forcing Ben Stokes, who was then and still arguably the greatest modern-day all-rounder, into the playing XI, as it was not needed. Do what’s required, but don’t create a necessity just because some names are sitting on the sidelines.

Lessons From 2019: When Roles Were Ignored

Let us go back in time to understand what I am on about. Back in 2019, when India began their tournament, most of the talk was about the number 4 spot! Too many analyses and dissections went into taking Vijay Shankar over Ambati Rayudu, but that’s not where we floundered. Following a few warm-up matches, we picked KL Rahul as our number 4, who carried the anchor role when our top 3 at the time were scoring most of the runs.

All it took was a hit for one of our very own, Shikhar Dhawan. Against Australia, where he made a 100, Dhawan copped a blow that ruled him out of the team.  That, ironically, was Dhawan’s last appearance in an ICC tournament. We had players like Mayank Agarwal and Ajinkya Rahane as options. But we didn’t replace an opener with another opener. We picked Rishabh Pant as the replacement, who was further pushed to number 4, and KL was made the opener.   

It may not seem like a blunder from the outside, but not replacing an opener with another opener and pushing somebody who has opened in the past up the order kind of disrupts the team’s balance. Especially when the actual replacement cannot replicate what the original number 4 was offering. It wasn’t entirely a like-for-like replacement, as Rishabh at that time didn’t have the patience, technique, or ability to anchor run chases. Somewhere, India missed a trick. Goes on to show that team selection is a strategy, and not a sentiment.   

Modern Examples of Role Imbalance: Mumbai Indians and Team India

In the recent 2025 IPL, MI were all set to win their 6th title, until they had to make some changes. They have 3 of their 4 foreigners unavailable for the playoffs, and they called in relevant replacements: Toopley, Asalanka, and Bairstow. Although you can’t bring in like-for-like players every time, this created a void like none other. 

Absence of Jacks and Bosch hurt them. While Bairstow did justice to his role, Jacks at number 3 and a few overs of spin were totally stripped off the table, and Bosch’s late-order blitz was missing, too. As a result, MI were eliminated from the IPL, seemingly missing their stars, and they paid the price for not picking like-for-like replacements. 

They didnt necessarily pick stars over sustenance. But this again shows what happens when you don’t have enough cover for your players and when you start altering positions midway.   

The most recent case and the ones that’rethat’re glaringly obvious to the eye, in the ongoing T20 World Cup, where Sanju Samson was dropped, Ishan was pushed up the batting order to open, which kind of cluttered the entire team, as Tilak too had to bat at number 3, when most of his success came as a number 5 batter for India. To make matters worse, it opened the floodgates for oppositions to start with an offspinner against two lefties, which led to the drought of Abhishek with a hat-trick of noughts.

Against Zimbabwe, Sanju was brought back, and the results speak for themselves.  Abhishek, Tilak, Kishan, and Sanju all fared well. This right here exemplifies the essence of picking players based on the slot. A proper opener who doesn’t disrupt the batting order should have replaced Sanju in the first place, and the price they paid for that was that defeat in the Super 8 against South Africa.

Margins Are Thin. Structure Matters

A standard approach adopted by champion teams, based on my humble observations, is to pick a team around a core group of players and ensure sufficient cover. Do not misposition or mismatch to compete. Those changes only work when 2 or more players share a similar style of play, and that, these days, is very rare.   

Cricket, like any other elite sport, is brutally competitive, and the margin is razor-thin. When two top teams compete and play to their strengths, the result hinges on who blinks first. Much like tennis, where holding serve keeps you in control, and one break can tilt the match, a single tactical error can swing an entire game.

If you can induce the error, good. But when two of the best teams face off, the side that sticks to its guns and waits for the opposition to concede often prevails. When teams are evenly matched and play to their strengths, the result is usually decided by the first mistake.

Don’t be the first one to make that error. Start with your team selection. Pick your team based on the appropriate slots, ditch the names, and pick based on your necessities. As mentioned earlier, team selection is a strategy, not sentiments. All of it can wait; winning is all that matters!  Every team’s approach is unique. Playing to your strengths is what matters, but at times, one needs to prepare to exploit an opposition’s weaknesses too. Ego has no spot in this sport.