I’ve watched almost every game that has been played in the ICC World Twenty20 and have noticed a few things.

Don’t break the flow of the game

The IPL can learn from this competition, the introduction of the ‘strategic break’ in IPL 2 was absolutely ridiculous. The break did exactly that “break” the flow of the game; the commentators started talking about the effects of the eleventh over in the IPL.

In this ICC World Twenty20 there have been no breaks, the game has flowed and the scores have been much higher, which the cricket fans love.

There is still place for an elegant cover drive in Twenty20 cricket

My second observation that I’d like to discuss is that batsmen can still play a cover drive in Twenty20 cricket. Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis in particular have played good cricket strokes in this ICC World Twenty20, and it’s worked.  Jacques is currently the leading run scorer in the competition with 147 runs in four innings with a strike rate of 129.85.

It hasn’t been often that you’ve seen Jacques play a shot in anger over the past few weeks. And when he has played the big shot it’s been with control. The same can be said about AB de Villiers, this man is pure class and he’s managed to bring that class and batting elegance from test cricket into the Twenty20.

The players who have struggled have been the guys trying to smash the ball out the park from ball one, Albie Morkel, Herschelle Gibbs and Mark Boucher.

Taking the pace off the ball

Having the ability to take the pace off the ball without being hit out the park, is possibly the greatest asset any team can have. Seven of the ten most economical bowlers in the competition are spin bowlers.

If you have a decent pace attack that can be backed up by your spinners then you’re going to do very well in Twenty20 cricket. Look at the South African team, we have great opening bowlers in Dale Steyn and Wayne Parnell, as soon as they come off we have Johan Botha and Roelof van der Merwe to build the pressure on the batsmen which then allows for the part timers to take wicket as the batsmen now need to up the run rate.

My last observation: if you have Wayne Parnell in your team, you are going to win the ICC World Twenty20

Statistic were taken from CricInfo, as of Monday June 15 @ 15H50