T20 World Cup: Sourav Ganguly sees in-form India as potential finalists

Sourav Ganguly, former India captain and president of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), sees Suryakumar Yadav & Co among the semi-finalists of the T20 World Cup starting on 7 February. ‘’It’s a tough to say in this format but India, Australia, South Africa and England are my picks for the last four,’’ Ganguly said.

Coming back after his first overseas coaching assignment with Pretoria Capitals in South Africa T20 which ended last week, Dada has hit the ground running with the job at hand – that of ensuring Eden Gardens put it’s best foot forward as hosts of seven matches of the World T20. There are five group league matches, one Super Eight game and a possible semi-final unless Pakistan qualify for it.

Now in his second stint as CAB president, Ganguly has had the experience of hosting marquee games of the last T20 World Cup in 2016 – a India-Pakistan league game and the final between eventual champions West Indies and England. Earlier this week, he along with the office-bearers did a recce of the stands, renovation work in the galleries as well as pitch preparation.

‘’Not only the Eden, but the entire city is looking ahead for the World Cup games. The venue is known to attract good crowd – we had a good turnout during three days of the Test against South Africa,’’ Ganguly said on CAB’s Instagram handle. There is, of course, enough skepticism about the attendance with little known Scotland replacing Bangladesh at the eleventh hour as the later refused to play their matches in India in the wake of the Mustafizur Rehman row.

Asked to name his pick for the tournament, Ganguly named the in-form India – who has had a 32-5 record in this format after winning the title in mid-2024. ‘’They will be one of my favourites as they are very strong in all departments – be it batting, seam bowling with (Jasprit) Bumrah or spin. They need to keep the tempo throughout the tournament,’’ he said.

 Ganguly put his money on India as one of the finalists and felt either of Australia or South Africa would be the other one. ‘’New Zealand, as always, will be my dark horse as they can always pull off a surprise,’’ Ganguly offered.

Looking at the bigger picture, he said: ‘’There are several players who can hit the ball a long way. India will bank on a lot on Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and now Ishan Kishan is back. There are other explosive batters like a Dewald Brevis (South Africa), Mitchell Marsh (Australia), Jos Buttler (England) or Sherfane Rutherford (West Indies).’’

Ganguly has also worn the BCCI president’s hat between 2019 and 2022 in between, but there are no guesses that the challenge which excites him is that of coaching. Pretoria Capitals, the SA T20 franchise owned by Delhi Capitals, roped him in on board to ensure a turnaround in the team’s fortunes for the 2025-26 season. In a vastly improved performance, Pretoria made the final but were outplayed by South Eastern Cape by six wickets.