T20 World Cup 2021: Brad Hogg picks his semi-final contenders, excludes Australia

Former Australia spinner Brad Hogg has revealed his picks for the semi-finalists of the T20 World Cup 2021, which went underway on October 17. The Super12 stage of the tournament will commence on October 23. Hogg, interestingly, did not name Australia as one of the contenders to make it into the top four.

“The teams that I think are going to go to the semis are England and the West Indies from Group 1 and from Group 2 I think it’s going to be Pakistan and India,” Hogg said in an interaction with Deep Dasgupta on his YouTube channel.

Notably, England and West Indies were the finalists in the last edition of the tournament in 2016, with the latter emerging as the champions. On the other hand, India, who won the inaugural edition in 2007 and lost the 2014 final against Sri Lanka, has been named as the favourites to lift the title in 2021.

Hogg further opened up and preview the chances of Pakistan, who are placed alongside New Zealand, India, Afghanistan and two qualifying teams in their group. He stated that if Pakistan loses their encounter against India, then their chances to qualify will be none.

“If Pakistan get beaten by India in the first game, they’ve got a short turnaround to play New Zealand. I think that will be a huge factor on whether Pakistan go through or not. If Pakistan lose against India in the first game, I don’t think they will get through, India will get through. So watch that space.”

India and Pakistan will begin their campaign on October 24 in Dubai, while both teams next play New Zealand on October 26 and 31, respectively. Speaking about the high-billing encounter, Indian skipper Virat Kohli recently said that he takes the game like any other match.

“I can talk from personal experience. I have honestly never felt so. I have always approached this game as just another game of cricket. I know there’s a lot of hype created around this game, more so with ticket sales and the demands of tickets and right now, the value of those tickets are ridiculously high. That’s all I know,” Kohli said.