'Surface, the venue, all seemed to be in India's favour': Nasser Hussain highlights BIGGEST truth

On Thursday, Team India produced a flawless performance against England in the T20 World Cup 2024 semi-final at the Providence Stadium and advanced to the final of the tournament. Batting first India posted a challenging total of 171 at the loss of 7 wickets. In reply, England were bundled out at the score of 103, thereby losing the game by a significant margin of 68 runs. Ahead of the start of the match, a few of England's ex-cricketers voiced their opinions on how ICC has a bias towards Indian cricket, and how unfair it is for other teams.

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Nasser Hussain quashes the ‘Bias’ narrative

A negative narrative about how the tournament is geared up for India was set up. Moreover, the fact that India were supposed to receive direct entry to the T20 World Cup 2024 final, should the match end in a total wash-out, unsettled the Englishmen. However, as a full match has transpired and India have reached the final in a fair and square manner, a former England captain, not Michael Vaughan, has eradicated the notion. According to Nasser Hussain, from surface to venue, nothing favored Team India, yet they fought their way forward.

"The narrative will be that everything on Thursday was geared towards India reaching the T20 World Cup final — the surface, the venue, all seemed to be in their favour. But if you look at things in greater detail, they came into this semi-final against England having just beaten 50-over world champions Australia on a bouncier, good pitch in St Lucia, and reverted to a lower, slower pitch and won comfortably. Fair play to them for the way they played and it feels right that India and South Africa, the two unbeaten sides in the tournament, go head to head in Barbados on Saturday," Hussain wrote in his column for Daily Mail.

Hussain said India got to a total of 171 courtesy of a gritty knock of Rohit Sharma. The total however didn't differ much from the T20 World Cup 2022 semi-final but due to the change in conditions this time the total turned out to be a winning one.

"India's score was only slightly higher than the 168 they put up in the 2022 semi-final they lost to England at the Adelaide Oval, but the difference in conditions to here in Guyana was chalk and cheese. A combination of seamers keeping the ball low and spinners turning it with no bounce made their 171 for seven a pretty decent score to defend, and Rohit Sharma showed his class by taking one of his favourite shots — the pull — out of the equation to make another half-century," Hussain said.