The five T20 World Cups so far have had five different winners – no team has won it twice.
Two of the strongest teams, Australia and South Africa, have not won the tournament at all. Neither has New Zealand, always a dangerous team.
In 2007 India won the inaugural edition, while in 2009 the losing finalist of 2007 Pakistan won. 2010 saw an English win, 2012 it was the West Indies, and 2014 had Sri Lanka as champions.
Interestingly, the host nation has never won. The five hosts thus far have been South Africa, England, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
When the World T20 started in 2007, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid informed the BCCI that they did not want to be considered for selection, as it was a young man’s game. Accordingly, unknown captain MS Dhoni was sent with a young team.
Now the situation has reversed. Veterans like Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Dhoni play T20 and not Test Cricket.
In the 2007 group stages, India and Pakistan scored 141 each and the first and only bowl-out followed, as three bowlers from each side bowled at a solitary stump.
Pakistan went in with bowlers Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul and Shahid Afridi, who missed. Dhoni tossed the ball to spinner Singh and two non-regular bowlers, Virender Sehwag and Robin Uthappa, who hit timber, and India qualified for the Super 8s. Thankfully ICC stopped the bowl-out, as it was not just cricket.
The final saw Dhoni give the final over to an unknown bowler, Joginder Sharma, and Misbah-ul-Haq scooped the ball to S. Sreesanth for India to become world champions. Coincidentally, in the league stage Sreesanth had run out Misbah to get India to the bowl-out.
While Sharma seemed an odd option for the final over, Singh, Sreesanth and Irfan Pathan had bowled out their four overs. So it was between either Joginder or Harbhajjan, but Misbah had hit ‘Bhajji’ for a huge six, so Dhoni went for Joginder, leading to Dhoni getting the nicknames of ‘Lucky Captain’ and ‘Captain Cool’ for the first time.
The 2007 tournament saw the first international T20 century, with Chris Gayle scoring 117 against South Africa. Since then 20 tons have been scored by 19 batsmen, with Brendon McCullum the only player to have two tons.
Yuvraj hit six 6s in an over off Stuart Broad at the 2007 T20. This feat has been done thrice in first-class cricket, and twice in international cricket. In International T20s, Yuvraj remains the only player to have done it.
For the 2016 World Cup, India are favourites, and could become the first host victors, as well as the first two-time winners.
Or will Australia win it for the first time, continuing the history of non-host champions?
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