Cricket: Ten to follow for the Twenty20 World Cup

Provided he does not wobble off the rails again Ryder could be one of the stars of the tournament. A turbulent youth forever falling out with the authorities or falling over after a few drinks, Ryder is now emerging as a special talent. He bats in the same vein as Marcus Trescothick, an uncomplicated left-hander, who keeps his head still and who clumps the ball with minimal foot movement but plenty of power. He is the less obvious threat in a potent Kiwi batting triumvirate – alongside Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor. Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

Mortaza is probably the wealthiest of the Bangladesh cricketers. After an unexpected bidding war he was signed to play in the IPL for $600,000 by the Kolkata Knight Riders. He did not give great value for money; he played one game and yielded 58 runs in his four overs. Mortaza is, however, a stalwart in the Bangladesh side after 35 Tests and 103 ODIs, habitually posing their greatest threat with the new ball. At 25 he is something of a veteran in a squad whose oldest player, Abdur Razzak, is 26. Photograph: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Foster last played for England in the Melbourne Test of December 2002 so his recall may seem something of a surprise, especially since Matt Prior has started the season successfully. But the selectors have not taken leave of their senses. Foster is a better cricketer in 2009 than 2002 and there is a premium in having a keeper standing up to the stumps to almost any type of bowler in Twenty20 cricket in order to put pressure on the batsmen. Foster can do that far better than Prior. It is odd and welcome how this bastardised form of the game demands the age-old skills of the purist behind the stumps. Photograph: John Walton/Empics Sport

Yuvraj decorated the last World Cup by smiting six sixes in an over by Stuart Broad, who appears to have recovered from that indignity. Since then he has tormented other English players, most notably Kevin Pietersen last December, with his innocuous left-arm spinners on England’s tour of India. We wait to see whether Pietersen has dealt as easily as Broad with his humiliation. Yuvraj is a natural entertainer, partly because he can get under his opponents’ skin so easily, a devastating striker and not a man who seems to be burdened with too much self-doubt. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images

A Twenty20 match can be decided by one or two epic performances, which is why England will keep an eye on Ten Doeschate on Friday in the opening game of the tournament. Those who have watched him perform for Essex or Western Province know that he has the potential to do damage with the bat – he can hit the ball a very long way – and with his lively medium pace. England should also watch out for the left-arm paceman, Dirk Nannes, a Japanese-speaking, saxophone-playing, expert skier, who has represented Victoria, Middlesex and the Delhi Daredevils at Twenty20 cricket. Photograph: Getty Images

Could Warner be the identikit of the 21st-century cricketer? In January 2009 he became the first Australian since 1877 to represent his country without playing a first-class game. On his Twenty20 debut this powerful little left-hander pummelled 89 from 43 balls against South Africa. Since then he has played another 10 internationals and one first-class match for New South Wales. Warner, 22, is the youngest man in an old squad – eight of the Australians are over 30. Watch out also for Andrew Symonds, snubbed by the selectors for Australia’s Test tour, suitably angry and potentially lethal in this form of the game. Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images

Aamir, who was 17 on 13 April, is the youngest player in the competition. He is a left-arm pace bowler who, in the Pakistani tradition, has been spotted at a pace camp by one of the legends of the national team, Wasim Akram, and catapulted into international cricket as a result. He has already excelled at Under-19 level and is one of three teenagers in the squad. There is no Shoaib Akhtar, Pakistan’s most controversial cricketer, who has been withdrawn from the squad for reasons which have been revealed with unusual candour by the Pakistan Cricket Board: he is suffering from “genital viral warts”. It must be hard to bowl fast with them. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

A peripheral player in the South African squad when they were in England last summer, Duminy is now a key man after an astonishing start to his Test career against Australia last winter. He is more experienced at the one-day game and has all the right attributes: he is a dashing left-handed batsman, a handy off-spinner and a dazzling fielder. His sudden elevation as an international cricketer was timely since he soon landed a $950,000 contract with the Mumbai Indians in the IPL. First spotted by this correspondent playing for Devon at Exmouth half a dozen years ago for rather less reward. Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images

In England we know about the mystery spinner, but we have not seen him in the flesh. Mendis bowls a mixture of leg-breaks, googlies and off-breaks as well as his “carrom” ball, which he releases with a snap of the fingers in a similar way to the Australian Jack Iverson in the Fifties. If that is not enough to have us salivating, it seems as if any spinner with a hint of mystery has a special value in Twenty20. It is not so easy to smash the ball out of the ground if you have no idea which way it is going to bounce upon landing. If the sun shines, Mendis and Murali might prevail in the most enchanting manner. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images

Chris Gayle’s team have looked a sullen bunch on their tour of England but, if there has been any sparkle, it has come from Dwayne Bravo. He arrived from South Africa, where he had a successful IPL with the Mumbai Indians, just for the ODIs – nobody knows why he came so late, but the official line was that his troublesome ankle might not survive the rigours of Test cricket. If Bravo could light their fuse, West Indies could still surprise us. It is not so long ago that they were irrepressible in pursuit of the Stanford millions with Gayle, now constantly derided, hailed as their champion. Photograph: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images