Match Highlights: FIFA World Cup, T20 Cricket, and More – Key Moments

THE LAST (AND ONLY OTHER) time that the T20 World Cup was played in India, the home side crashed out at the semifinal stage. That was in 2016, a whole decade before T20’s biggest inter­national prize returns to the land where it is cherished the most, this time with the added pressure of hosts India being defending champi­ons. The turnaround time is very fast between two editions of the T20 World Cup: so quick that even though Rohit Sharma winning the tro­phy for India in Barbados feels like it happened just yesterday, already it is time for the next edition of the trophy to take place, the 10th T20 World Cup no less, within just 19 years of its inaugural tournament.

At the end of the previous, victorious campaign of 2024, captain Rohit, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja rode together into the sunset of their T20I careers, leaving the field open for the next generation of talent (put on vivid display during the IPL) to take over. They did, but a young team is always prone to inconsistency, hence it comes as no great surprise that Suryakumar Yadav’s men enter their most important tournament yet with a mixed record and several question marks. All those questions, including ‘can they’, will be answered over February and March, where India begin their campaign in the relative ease of a group that consists of Namibia, the Netherlands, the US and Pakistan.