South Africa new favourites

Australia may be gone but the other top teams all remain and South Africa are the narrow favourites going into the Super Eights stage of the World Twenty20.

Australia's exit was a surprise but not a massive shock as they look pretty tired to me and they will surely be more concerned with the Ashes, which starts in early July.

So with them gone, bet365 make South Africa the 5/2 favourites to take the title from India, who won the inaugural event two years ago. India are 10/3 and then Sri Lanka are 9/2, but after that there is a noticeable gap. New Zealand are 6/1, Pakistan and England are 8/1 and West Indies are a 9/1 chance, with Ireland there by merit, but to make up the numbers really, at 150/1.

As I said in the original preview, England will not win this competition, as surely their opening defeat by the Netherlands proved. They don't have enough match-winners in their side, nor enough explosive batsmen, to frighten anyone.

I'd rather back West Indies, at 9/1, than England, because Chris Gayle can win a match on his own and they have people like Dwayne Bravo who can turn a match from lower down the order.

India have done nothing wrong yet but I worry a little about what the injury to Virender Sehwag will mean for them. Dinesh Karthik is a fine player but he is not as destructive as Sehwag, and they will miss his dynamism at the top of the order.

Nevertheless, they are in a good position, even if they are in the more difficult group, with South Africa, West Indies and England to face, compared to Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Pakistan and Ireland in the other one.

That explains the difference in price between Sri Lanka and West Indies, although the Sri Lankans have so many good players in their team, and a great bowling attack, that they would seem to be better equipped to win it.

South Africa would appear to be the ones to beat at the moment, though. In AB De Villiers, they have a superb batsmen who appears to be able to turn his hand from Test cricket to Twenty20 with no trouble at all.

At this stage, though, India are still right in there, and even Pakistan have shown that they are always tough to beat at Twenty20, so there is an awful lot to play for, and I see little reason to change my original selections, which were India and a versatile New Zealand side.