Sky Sports Cricket Podcast
ICC T20 World Cup preview: Politics, six-hitting & England's chances
04 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What off-field issues are threatening the T20 World Cup?
Yeah, gone.
Gone, he gets his fairytale ending. An epic way to go to a Test Match 100. The London Sphere, the first-time winners. The most remarkable thing you'll probably ever see in cricket.
Chapter 2: How do England's recent performances affect their chances in the T20 World Cup?
604 and final Test wicket for Stewart Ward. It's India who win the T20 World Cup. England's captain, Ben Stokes, while he is there, England have hope.
Well, after a dismal ashes, the Sky Cricket Podcast is back on the eve of the T20 World Cup, the 10th edition of which, which gets underway on Saturday. We'll be talking about that later on in the pod. But, Nass, first of all, it's a timely return for the pod, given that England's under-19s have just beaten Australia's under-19s in the semi-final of their...
Well, it must be us. Whenever we were around, it was all doom and gloom and negative ashes and everything that happened in the winter, the women's World Cup. And then we've not been around and they've had a brilliant month in Sri Lanka. And the under 19s have gone off and got through to the final.
Chapter 3: What controversies surround captain Harry Brook ahead of the World Cup?
I mean, a semifinal against Australia. You've got to be a good player in a youth World Cup, under-19 World Cup, to get runs in a semi-final against Australia. You have to be a serious talent to be able to do that, don't you?
Well, we were wallet all those years ago. I wasn't.
You were.
For those too young enough to remember, which will be most of our listeners, I should imagine, myself and Nass played in the very first under-19 World Cup, which was in 1988, the bicentennial season.
celebration of Australia and we were smashed in the semi-final by Australia at the Adelaide Oval Australia side that included Stuart Law and Alan Mullally but yesterday England's under 19s they look good don't they they've got some good players there Thomas Rue made a fantastic 100. He's having a good tournament behind the sticks as captain and with the bat.
I've watched quite a bit of the two young Middlesex players, actually, Caleb Falconer and Seb Morgan, because they play quite a bit with my lad at Middlesex. They're both good players. Ralphie Albert going well. Jimmy White's grandson, which is a great story there. He's at Surrey.
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Chapter 4: Which teams are favorites to win the T20 World Cup?
I mean, they just look a very good set of players, don't they?
They do. And the one that actually took, I mean, obviously, Roo is a standout player. I mean, every time I look at under-19s or Somerset or Somerset seconds or Lions trips or whatever, one of the Roos is just getting runs. I mean, it's incredible. The elder brother I was talking to you about in the winter, and you said, actually, Nass, keep an eye on the younger one.
And that's why I tuned in the first game to watch him. I'd seen him on streams or whatever, and he looks a real talent. But the lad that caught my eye at the other end was Ben Mays. the Hampshire lad. I was watching Roo and it was against Zimbabwe and May's got something like 77, not out. And it just, you see people lying. He should be as an England under 19 top order batter, by the way.
So he should line up well, but you just, I never had that real gut feeling of players growing up young players, but this one I look at and think he can seriously play. So Ollie Peake, the Australian is,
Chapter 5: What impact does politics have on international cricket today?
He looks a player. Suryavanshi from India. I think these are the lads for years to... Who knows? Some of that Australian side we played away just faded away and didn't get their chance. But there are four or five.
You say faded away. It's very interesting that because... In effect, not many of them got an opportunity simply because Australia's system being just six first-class teams, it was much harder to get into first-class cricket than it was, say, for our players, all of whom went on to enjoy most 99% of whom enjoyed significant first-class careers.
Obviously, because of 18 sides, it was easier to get in. And I'm always fascinated... by the standards at under-19 level and how then that translates down the line.
I remember interviewing Rahul Dravid many years ago and he said, you know, under-19s level, he said the Indian players, because he was under-19s coach for a while, India's coach, and he said at that age group, he felt India's players were a good few notches ahead of England's in terms of experience, playing capability, knowledge, nous and all those kind of things.
But the next two or three years, because then England's players got into the county system and had a lot of first-class experience, they caught up very quickly. Now, our experience would be that Australia's system is goal standard domestic system and that the players that did then eventually get into first class cricket, you know, that system would help them progress to a higher standard.
And that will be fascinating to see how that progresses over the next few years.
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Chapter 6: How does the T20 format influence player selection strategies?
I mean, I still think Australia's... first-class system is gold standard. Although if they sell the Big Bash League to private investment, I do feel that's going to impact their domestic system negatively down the line.
I guess you could argue badly. It's one of the upsides of the 100 and the fact then the 50-over tournament are missing a lot of players. There's a lot of these youngsters that we're talking about have actually been playing 50-over cricket. And you could, I mean, Somerset will have an interesting decision to make with young Thomas Roo.
Watching him play, he should now be playing across four-match, shouldn't he? They have got a seriously good side, but they must have... They had that problem in the past, didn't they, with Butler and Keyes' veteran.
Butler had to ship off up to Old Trafford.
Yeah.
Yeah. One thing's for certain, Roux's a good player. There's elite analysis from this podcast.
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Chapter 7: What are the strengths and weaknesses of India in the upcoming World Cup?
Now, the T20 World Cup is coming up. We're flying off to it over the next couple of days. But it's been an interesting week or 10 days or a couple of weeks because, obviously, Bangladesh... have pulled out and Pakistan have pulled out of their fixture. Now, we're recording this on Wednesday.
It's one of these situations that by the time this podcast comes out, we'll probably be overtaken because who knows what the ramifications of that decision from Pakistan will be. But right now, that's where we stand. And I mean, I think it's a bit of a crisis for the international game and the world game, actually, because the game is so concentrated in that one area.
You know, people talk about cricket being a global game, the second most popular game. which it is numbers wise, but is very, very concentrated on the subcontinent. And if you've got a situation where, you know, India won't go to Pakistan, Pakistan won't go to India, now Bangladesh won't go to India and lots of global events are there.
And these global events are starting to become very compromised because And that's, there are more, we'll talk about the more immediate impact, but that's broadly a bit of a crisis for the game, I think.
It is, and fairly depressing, to be honest, because, I mean, sport and cricket and politics have always been intertwined.
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Chapter 8: What expectations should England have for their T20 World Cup campaign?
And no one knows that better than me. I didn't take an England side to the 2003 World Cup game. In Zimbabwe, some of that was down to security. A lot of it was down to the Mugabe regime. So there's always been a link between sport and politics. But it just seems recently that link is more and more. It used to be the exception. It's now...
the norm and it's not just politics and politicians it's players as well players I've seen in the last couple of years like I say it's fairly depressing not shaking hands not lifting the trophy you know cricket used to unite nations and countries that were finding difficulties and now it's pushing people apart you've just got to remember where this recent crisis started
Rahman is playing for Kolkata in the IPL, or he's in the squad. And inexplicably, he's just suddenly the BCCI say, no, you're going to take him out of that squad because of the ongoing situation with Bangladesh and India. And everything from that one decision snowballed.
Well, actually, you've kind of got to go back, I think, a little bit further to the Champions Trophy. Because India not going to Pakistan, who are the hosts, they then are given dispensation to play all their games in Dubai, which was a dispensation not given to other sides in the past who'd stepped away from international games.
As you said, you didn't go to Zimbabwe, teams didn't go to Sri Lanka in 1996. But then when the Mostafiza thing happened and Bangladesh say, well, our government say, well, we can't go to India, they're demanding the same kind of treatment, albeit this is on the eve of the tournament rather than months in advance.
So you start from the Champions Trophy, you go through to the Mostafiza decision, and then the decisions that Bangladesh and Pakistan make, they're not taken in isolation. There's context to the whole thing.
Yeah, I mean, there is a slight difference there and you touched on it in that the late logistical with a month to go, everything set up to go in the tournament. And I have some sympathy with the ICC there that the late decision to say, right, we're not traveling. So I guess the real comparison would be and this is the real question that only the ICC can answer.
If it had been India, and in the future, if India, a month before a tournament, say, our government does not want us to go and play in that country in a World Cup, would the ICC have been so firm and say, you know the rules, bad luck, we're knocking you out? That is the only question that all sides ask for is consistency.
You have to treat Bangladesh the same as you treat Pakistan and the same as you treat India. Now, India fans will say, cry more. We have the money. It's all down. But with power comes responsibility. If you are constantly knocking Bangladesh or Pakistan, their cricket diminishes. And hence, those great games that we've seen in the past between India and Pakistan or India and Bangladesh,
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