The World T20 Qualifiers are set to start in a few hours and I'm pleased to note that interest and breadth of commentary has again stepped up a level from the previous tournament of twenty months ago. This edition sees six teams progress, and unusually for the ICC, a format that promises to mix excitement and meaning throughout its length. If the warmup matches are any guide every team has a reasonable opportunity of making the play-offs; once there, two wins or less is sufficient to book a passage to Bangladesh.

Having already previewed the tournament at length on the podcast I will use this post to make a few notes unsuited to the oral format.

TV coverage

The ICC will be live-streaming selected games from the opening rounds; and ESPN or its affiliate, as the global broadcaster is lined up to do the playoffs. A list, follows:

ICC streamed matches
15 November: Ireland v Namibia, Canada v USA, Afghanistan v Netherlands
16 November: Namibia v UAE, Ireland v Canada, Afghanistan v Scotland
18 November: Denmark v Kenya, Scotland v Nepal
19 November: Netherlands v Denmark, Scotland v Kenya
20 November: Netherlands v Nepal
22 November: PNG v Denmark, Afghanistan v Nepal
23 November: Netherlands v Kenya, Bermuda v Nepal
24 November: Afghanistan v Kenya

TV broadcast
27 November: 2nd v 3rd Qualifying Finals
28 November: Qualification Finals (L2v3 vs W4v5)
29 November: Semi-Finals
30 November: 3rd vs 4th Playoff and Final

Previews and pointers

A number of excellent previews have been written. And there is ongoing, generally well-informed commentary on both Facebook and Twitter. It is worth returning to my previews from 2012 (Group A|Group B) for useful follows. A probably incomplete list of previews follows:

Russell Degnan and Andrew Nixon, Associate and Affiliate Cricket Podcast
Peter Della Penna, Cricinfo: Battle royal for World T20 prize
Jack Sheldon, Deep Extra Cover: Group A Group B
Llewelyn Scott-Hoy: World T20 Qualifier Preview
Tim Brooks, All Out Cricket: Group A Group B
Martin Jones, The Popping Crease: Qualifier Preview A-D H-K N-P S-U
Arjun Vidyarthi, SuperSport: Kenyan Preview
Osman Samiuddin, UAE National: Group A Group B
Tarqun Brook, Adamski Loves Cricket: World T-20 Qualifiers
ICC/CricketEurope: Group A Group B
Sammy Edwards, T20 International: Day by day previews

Groups by the Numbers

Rankings in T20 are notoriously unreliable. The regional and HPP bubbles are just as problematic as the full member one is. Nevertheless, you can only go off the date you have, and any previews that ignore past performance are probably equally as flawed. The following is the best estimate at various scenarios, using monte-carlo modelling.

Group A	Rating	Form	Weight	Qual.	1st Grp	Top-3 Grp	Top-5 Grp
Ireland	3203.6	-74.8	8.9	96.9%	88.0%	99.8%	100.0%
U.A.E.	2945.3	+9.1	9.1	63.8%	8.3%	76.2%	94.3%
Namibia	2838.4	-92.2	10.2	42.8%	2.0%	44.5%	80.3%
Canada	2801.7	-11.3	11.6	35.0%	1.0%	33.3%	72.3%
Hong Kong	2745.2	+80.1	10.5	23.5%	0.4%	19.3%	55.0%
Italy	2713.4	-38.0	8.6	18.1%	0.2%	13.6%	44.9%
U.S.A.	2671.0	+23.4	14.7	12.6%	0.0%	8.9%	32.5%
Uganda	2621.6	-31.5	10.8	7.4%	0.0%	4.5%	20.8%

Group B	Rating	Form	Weight	Qual.	1st Grp	Top-3 Grp	Top-5 Grp
Afghanistan	2991.6	-22.2	14.0	74.6%	36.4%	82.2%	97.8%
Scotland	2954.2	+32.9	9.8	67.9%	27.9%	74.3%	95.4%
Netherlands	2925.0	-21.7	6.8	62.0%	20.7%	66.2%	94.9%
Kenya	2876.8	+8.8	18.2	50.4%	12.1%	49.9%	89.7%
Nepal	2741.5	+30.9	9.6	24.8%	2.1%	17.6%	62.1%
P.N.G.	2654.3	+28.6	9.9	11.3%	0.5%	6.0%	32.6%
Denmark	2617.8	+5.5	10.4	7.7%	0.3%	3.6%	23.4%
Bermuda	2479.0	+8.7	12.4	1.1%	0.0%	0.2%	4.2%

Cricket - Associate 15th November, 2013 14:58:09   [#] 

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