What makes a successful T20 player and team?

After the conclusion of the second season of the IPL extravaganza, and before the start of the second T20 World Cup, the question comes up: what makes a cricketer and a team successful at the newest abbreviated form of cricket?

Conventional wisdom says that T20 is a young man's game, but Adam Gilchrist, Anil Kumble, Matthew Hayden and Rahul Dravid made a mess of that wisdom by outperforming the youngsters.

One might think that the nationally selected players in the other two versions (especially ODI) would make good candidates. But Ishant Sharma -- young and successful, and richly paid -- was overshadowed by overlooked bowlers such as RP Singh, Ashish Nehra and Pragyan Ojha.

Big hitters such as Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff and Chris Gayle -- each paid over a million dollars for a month of cricket --  failed, while retirees like Gilchrist and Hayden shone, alongside newbies like Manish Pandey.

The bottom-ranked two teams from last year played the finals this year. Even of these two, the underdogs won. As did the underdogs in each of the semifinals -- the winningest teams in the highly stretched league phase didn't make the finals. And the teams that won the tournament last year couldn't make the semis this year.

So should India -- defending champions of the T20 World Cup, and most represented in the IPL of any nation -- be expected to win the upcoming World Cup?

Sure, they could win. They could also fail to make the semifinals. But the ICC will be rooting for India, because in the latter case, they would fail to make much money off the tournament.

Consistency and predictability don't seem to be a part of T20 cricket. Then again, perhaps that's part of its charm.