Twenty20 World Cup / Frank Gregan / 26 April 2010 /

Frank Gregan looks at the embarassment of riches that Australia have at their disposal that has allowed them to accept Ricky Ponting's retirement in this format and decide that the likes of Doug Bollinger are surplus to requirement....

One of the most disappointing comments that a supporter can hear from the coach of his or her team is "the side picks itself." That's a euphemism for "one to eleven we're not bad but we've got no strength in depth!" The easiest way to determine the quality of a top class football team is to look at the talent that's fit and healthy but sat in the stand, suited and booted. The same applies to any team game and cricket is no exception. An easy way to determine the strength of each nation's chances in the upcoming Twenty20 World Cup is not to look at who made the squad but to focus on who missed out.

Take the football punters out of the Betfair front room and replace them with four England cricket fans along with coach Andy Flower and get them to write down their starting eleven for England's opening match against the West Indies on the 3rd May in Guyana. Lift the restriction that they can only pick from the chosen squad, let the supporters have the pick of every fit English cricketer and the odds are that at least nine of the players would be on all five team sheets.

That proves that selecting the English Twenty20 side is a bit like the gene pool of a small town in Indiana, there's not a lot of raw material to work with! Most supporters have a favourite player that's a bit out of left field and who hasn't made the squad. They'd like to see him given a chance but the options are limited. Jonathan Trott seems to be the one that gets most votes in the 'unluckiest to miss out category' but there are a few other interesting guys on the fringe, Somerset's Peter Trego being one of them.

Other countries seem to have a wealth of talent at their disposal. The indigenous players in the IPL served notice of how difficult it is to gain entry into the Indian squad and the South Africans seem to have masses of highly talented players to choose from. As ever in these situations, there is one country that stands out whilst one is jealously pondering the riches available to other nations - Australia!

Australia provides the IPL with its elder statesmen: Shane Warne, Andrew Symonds, Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden, all of whom are finished at international level. It's not only the old timers though. There are other Aussies (who would walk into any other national squad) who are not going to be involved when the Caribbean tournament gets underway.

Ricky Ponting retired from Twenty20 cricket last year at the age of 35 in order to prolong his Test career. If he was English there would be a Facebook campaign to get him to reconsider his decision and questions would be asked in the House of Lords! In Australia, a country with a population smaller than the Greater Tokyo Area and only three times that of Greater London, they barely blinked, "Good on yer Ricky, we'll wheel out another world class player to take yer place!"

Travis Birt, Ryan Harris and Doug Bollinger are considered to be the three Australians that were closest to selection but missed out. Bollinger would waltz into most squads but such is the depth of talent Down Under that he is considered surplus to requirements.

It's really difficult to look past the Australians when picking the winner of this tournament but the term 'value' screams through the head every time the finger hovers over Australia's back button. Given the lack of predictability in this format of the game, [4.4] is way too short a price and I'm sticking to my guns and going with my original recommendation - the West Indies at [11.5].

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