The timing of the IPL 2024 and T20 World Cup 2024—the latter beginning less than ten days after the IPL 2024 final—made the world’s rich franchise league an ideal practice tournament for the T20 World Cup-bound players. This was especially true for India, as all of the World Cup-bound players featured extensively in the league with no injury concerns (thankfully).
However, what is telling is that no one from the 15-member India squad for the T20 World Cup will feature in today’s IPL 2024 final between Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad, at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai, Except Rinku Singh, who will travel to the Americas as a reserve player.
The representation of World Cup-bound players from Australia and South Africa in the final stands at three – Pat Cummins, Travis Head from SRH, Mitchell Starc from KKR, and for SA, Heinrich Klassen, Aiden Markram and Marco Jansen. West Indies have two T20 World Cup-bound players who could feature in the IPL 2024 final – Andre Russell KKR and Sherfane Rutherford (both KKR). Afghanistan also have a representation with Rahmanullah Gurbaz (KKR) and Fazalhaq Farooqui (SRH) and even Sri Lanka have one World Cup-bound player who could feature in the final – Dushmantha Chameera (SRH).
Does this mean that, with no Indians featuring in the final, it is not good news for the team heading into the T20 World Cup? Well, not really. On the upside, the majority of the Indian squad is already on their way to the USA (they boarded the fight on the 25th of May), barring Virat Kohli, Sanju Samson and Hardik Pandya, so they will get a few more days to get acclimatised to the conditions.