The T20 World Cup’s Super 12 stage will begin from Saturday and the top cricketing nations will fight to become the world champions of cricket’s shortest format. It has been five years since the last tournament was played and fans are ready to witness some cracking duels in a format that has loads of thrills in it. The tournament has already started with the first round where teams like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Ireland are battling it out with Associate nations for 4 spots in the Super 12 stage where the cricketing elite are waiting.

India will take on arch-rivals Pakistan in a blockbuster clash on Sunday and everyone is eagerly waiting to see the two teams fight it out. Ahead of the start of the tournament, India registered two comfortable wins in the warm-up matches against England and Australia.

Former Australian fast bowling great Brett Lee believes sub-continental teams will hold an edge in these conditions but the IPL experience will help players from other countries. He though asserted that Virat Kohli’s team remains the top contenders.

“The teams who have had success on these wickets are generally from the sub-continent, so they normally have that advantage. But because we have just had the back end of the IPL played on these pitches, I think it brings the playing field a lot closer and both the Aussies and Proteas will be thinking that,” Lee wrote in his column for ICC.

“But saying that, I think India are probably t​he favourites with their top four or five batters and their bowling attack,” he added.

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Lee also predicted that India opener KL Rahul could finish as the tournament’s top run-getter and tipped Rahul’s Punjab Kings teammate Mohammed Shami to finish with most wickets.

“I have KL Rahul down as the top run-scorer in the tournament and Mohammed Shami to be the leading wicket-taker, purely going on the last few months. So if they deliver and India have one of the leading run-scorers and wicket-takers, it’s a good start,” Lee said.