There’s a growing feeling around cricketing circles that this year’s World Cup, which begins in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Saturday, could prove to be the best for 15 years, and certainly the most wide open, with no fewer than six sides with a realistic chance of winning the trophy.
There’s also universal agreement that cricket’s World Cup, with its bloated, juggernaut structure, which requires a month’s-worth of preliminary group games – apparently designed specifically to bore the pants off anyone with the remotest interest in the sport – is just plain wrong.
And there’s widespread agreement that the obvious favorites to win the trophy by the time we lurch to the final in Mumbai in April are India. They are the current major world force in the 50-over format, with one of the all-time greats, Sachin Tendulkar, in their side. You can also argue that they should benefit from home advantage more than co-hosts Sri Lanka and minnows Bangladesh (Pakistan dropped out of their hosting duties two years ago due to terrorism concerns).
Yet when a fair dinkum former Australian captain, Ian Chappell, doesn’t say that there is one side that will win the title and instead talks of his “five favorites to win,” you know the tournament is wide open. And that Australia are not the force they once were, despite their recent 6-1 one-day series win over England.
India may be the strongest team, but the pressure of playing at home will be immense. No team has ever won the World Cup on home turf.
Australia, bidding for a fourth consecutive World Cup victory, have a bowling attack based around aggressive pacemen who may be neutralized on the pudding wickets of the sub-continent. Without injured Nathan Hauritz, their only specialist spin bowler on a continent where spin is usually supreme, even in one-dayers, is an untested rookie.
Sri Lanka look a little light in the middle-order batting but have so many match-winners at the top and bottom of their XI that they could beat anyone.
South Africa are, for once, a well balanced squad, bolstered by the inclusion of legspinner Imran Tahir.
Even England have a chance, albeit one that is greatly diminished by the absence of the injured Eoin Morgan.
Given that Pakistan have included the likes of Shoaib Akhtar, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq and Younis Khan, Chappell’s five favorites could easily have been six.
“The 2011 World Cup is potentially the most open since the inaugural tournament in 1975,” reckons Chappell, who captained Australia to that first World Cup final, where they lost to the West Indies, ushering in a 15-year period of domination of Test and one-day cricket by the cavaliers of the Caribbean.
“Unlike the 2007 tournament where it was simply a matter of: ‘Who’ll meet Australia in the final?’ this time the defending champions are not favorites,” Chappell writes.
For punters the ante post markets now are rendered virtually meaningless by the month-long phony war of qualifying games. So much can change to the structure and outlook of a side during that preliminary month.
And the lop-sided nature of the group draw, with Group A being far tougher than Group B, may also alter the eventual outcome. As Chappell notes, the winner of Group A’s reward is a “soft” quarter-final against Bangladesh or West Indies.
Chappell reckons that of his “five favorites,” England, exhausted and injured after their recent grueling tour to Australia, will miss out on a semifinal berth.
Related posts:
Cricket - Co-hosts India look strong favorites to regain World Cup (James Payton) 
0
Cricket - England’s poor one-day form fails to shift World Cup odds (James Payton) 0
Cricket - South Africa to get World Cup underway properly vs. Windies (James Payton) 0
Cricket - Morgan injury is latest setback to England’s World Cup prospects (James Payton) 0
Cricket - Broad returns and Pietersen opens to enliven England chances (James Payton) 0
RSS
Google
MyYahoo!
MyMSN
NewsGator
BlogLines