Pakistan T20 World Cup Preview & Betting Tips

Pakistan World T20 best odds

The best odds on Pakistan to win the T20 World Cup are 12.0 with Betway. That makes them roughly the sixth-favourites, at a very similar price to what South Africa are.

And in truth, it’s a very good price. They’re currently ranked 4th in the ICC rankings, above teams like Australia who are considerably shorter, and also above the Proteas, who as we’ve said already, are at a very similar price to Pakistan.

That’s testament to their consistency over the past couple of years and as we’ll soon see, they’ve performed well in this competition over the years. So they’re certainly worthy of a second look as potential winners.

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Pakistan Performance 2019-20

In terms of the Pakistan performance at the last World Cup, it wasn’t great. They finished just fourth out of five in the Group Stages, with just the one win over Bangladesh to show for their efforts.

After that win, there was the customary loss at World Cups to India, a comprehensive defeat by 22 runs against New Zealand and another poor showing against Australia, where they conceded a huge 193/4 and were never really in contention during the chase.

In truth, it was a case of boasting a side that wasn’t up to the standard of previous ones at T20 World Cups. Shahid Afridi showed some naivety as skipper from a tactical point of view, while not really performing on an individual basis.

As for the rest of the side, Mohammad Hafeez and Sharjeel Khan each played one innings of substance with the bat, while Mohammad Sami was the best of a bad bunch with the ball.

This is a wildly different squad now to the one from 2016. There’s a very good chance that all-rounders Imad Wasim and Mohammad Hafeez are the only survivors from that team who feature here again four years later.

That is unless Mohammad Amir reverses his decision to retire and makes himself available for his national team again. But don’t count on it.

Pakistan facts

• The now-retired (from international cricket) Shahid Afridi is the top wicket-taker in the T20 World Cup with 39.
• Afridi was man of the match in both the semi and final of the 2009 World Cup as they won it, scoring fifties in both matches.
• Pakistan were one boundary away from winning the first-ever T20 World Cup when Misbah Ul Haq was out caught to hand India the win.
• With a win percentage of 57.35%, they have the fifth-best win rate from across all teams.
• Skipper Babar Azam and keeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan are ranked 3rd and 10th in the T20I ICC rankings respectively.
• No Pakistan player features in the ICC Top 10 for either bowling or all-rounders

Captain: Babar Azam

Azam is currently ranked third in the ICC rankings but he was ranked 1 for a while over the last few years, proof of his reputation as arguably the most consistent batsman in the world in this format.

The thing about Azam in T20s is that he doesn’t play like most other batsmen. Rather than smashing a big six every few balls to get that strike rate up and occasionally getting out doing so, Azam just trusts his judgement, timing and shot selection.

The result is that he plays orthodox cricket shots, rarely clears the boundary but still maintains a very acceptable strike rate, whether that’s opening or batting at three. We’re yet to know what sort of captain he really is because he hasn’t been in the job that long; but this is obviously the moment for us to find out.

At least he’s popular with the other players, which hasn’t always been the case with former Pakistan skippers.