4 Players who have a lot to prove in the 2026 Men's T20 World Cup
We are at the closing stages of the Group stages of the 2026 Men’s T20 World Cup, and we already have our Super 8 sides who will do battle in the next round for a place in the semifinal of the tournament. While some of the players have wasted no time in making a mark in this tournament, there are a few who entered the tournament with high hopes and lofty expectations, but have yet to set the tournament alike.
So we take a look at those players who have a lot to prove as we are all set to enter the next stage of the Tournament.
- Jos Buttler, England
Jos Buttler is undoubtedly England’s best white-ball player by a country mile. His exploits in the shortest format of the game are the stuff of legend. When on song, Buttler can singlehandedly take away the game from any opponent, no matter how good they are or how much quality they possess in their bowling attack. Some of the best bowlers in the world have been reduced to cannon fodder when Buttler gets going.
However, this World Cup has not yet seen the best of Jos Buttler the batsman as he is still searching for his rhythm and has struggled for fluency up top for England. In what has been a disappointing campaign for Buttler so far, he has managed to score a paltry 53 runs, with single-digit scores against Italy and Scotland, with a top score of 26 against Nepal.
Buttler’s failures at the top are magnified much more due to England having a rather indifferent tournament so far. His poor form has attracted some chatter and calls for him being dropped for Ben Duckett have been gathering steam. With England opening their Super 8 campaign against Sri Lanka on Sunday in conditions where spin will play a huge part, the Poms will hope that Buttler finally rises to the occasion and shows the world that there is still life in the old dog just yet.
- Quinton de Kock, South Africa
When it was revealed that Quinton de Kock had announced his decision to come back into the South Africa T20 side, it sent a wave of massive euphoria and excitement in the South African faithful. He entered the World Cup on the back of scintillating form, with runs against West Indies and was expected to be the firebrand at the top of the order for the Proteas.
And while de Kock has definitely managed to get a few runs under his belt, the strike rate has not been up to the lofty standards that the southpaw has set for himself. He did manage to show glimpses of his destructive self against Afghanistan when he scored a fluent half-century, but he was dismissed just when he was starting to look more like the swashbuckler he was before the tournament.
With the Proteas opening their campaign against defending champions India on Sunday in Ahmedabad, South Africa will hope that this is the game that de Kock announces himself as the devastating force that he is in the shortest format of the game.
- Abhishek Sharma, India
The poster boy of modern India’s T20i juggernaut was touted for massive things in the T20 World Cup. Abhishek Sharma has been in a league of his own, scoring runs at will and playing a brand of cricket that borders on stratospheric excellence. He entered the competition as the Number.1 batsman in the world and was expected to take the tournament by storm right from the very first ball.
Well, safe to say that things have not gone as planned. And that is putting it rather lightly.
Abhishek has had an absolutely atrocious start to the tournament, with a bout of illness first disrupting his build-up to the tournament, and when he returned back, he was dismissed for three consecutive ducks in the tournament. Against the USA, it was a nothing shot that got him a first-ball blob. Against Pakistan and Netherlands, it was the matchup against the off-spinners Salman Ali Agha and Aryan Dutt that brought about his downfall. For a batsman who is so inclined to getting off the mark with a scoring shot, mostly a boundary, he seems to be trying way too hard and probably letting the occasion get the better of him.
His lean run is drawing parallels with Virat Kohli’s 2024 T20 World Cup campaign. If he manages to pull off something similar with the end result being like it was in 2024, it’ll be a pretty good job from the southpaw.
- Phil Salt, England
Another Englishman finds his way in the list, and no surprises to see that it is Buttler’s opening partner who is also having a similar lean run which has resulted in England’s rather ordinary start to the tournament.
While Salt has been the slightly better of the two English openers, he has also not really had the explosive tournament he was hoping for. While admittedly he has had two blazing starts that underline his quality and his skill level when he is at his fluent best, his poor score against Nepal and Scotland, where he was dismissed for 1 and 2 respectively has pointed to a more inconsistent nature of his game.
At his best, Salt is a quintessential destroyer who can butcher and pulverise any bowling attack at will, but in the Super 8 stages where the margin for error is very miniscule, Salt cannot go on a feast-or-famine run of scores. It could very well be the difference between a spot in the semis and a flight back home.
