Former England captains Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain have given their thoughts on who will win the upcoming T20 World Cup.
Australia are widely considered to be the favourites, given they are the defending champions and the tournament is being played Down Under. However, neither Atherton nor Hussain have backed them to lift the trophy, although Hussain admitted they are "going to be very dangerous".
Speaking on the Sky Sports Cricket podcast, Atherton tipped "dark horse" South Africa to win the tournament, despite their recent comprehensive 3-0 T20I series loss to India. "I think it looks a pretty open tournament," Atherton said.
"I know there's no standout favourite according to the bookies. Every side looks to have some weaknesses.
"I would say Australia on home turf are probably favourites but if you think about the last tournament, although they won it, you wouldn't say they were across the board the outstanding side.
"England smashed them in the group stages. It looks quite open to me and I wonder if there might be a good case for someone like South Africa to come up from the outside.
"I'm going to take a bit of a flyer and look outside of the top three and go for South Africa. They could be a dark horse and finally break a duck in these events."
Hussain, however, is feeling confident about England's chances at the World Cup and is tipping Jos Buttler's side to go all the way after they were knocked in the semi-finals by New Zealand last year.
"Australia look a very, very strong side," Hussain said. "They look like they've got every base covered and on home turf they're going to be very dangerous.
"If you look at the odds, Australia are the favourites, but England just beat them the other day [in their first warm-up match] so I'm going for England."
