South Africa to get World Cup underway properly vs. Windies

South Africa to get World Cup underway properly against Windies

If Usain Bolt ever false starts by as much as this year’s cricket World Cup has done this week, he’d be disqualified. The tournament began on Saturday (apparently), but it will not be until Thursday in Delhi, when South Africa play the West Indies, that a real hot-blooded match takes place.

South Africa should win this game against the two-time World Cup-winners, the first of a couple of more attractive matches: Australia v New Zealand follows on Friday, with Sri Lanka hosting Pakistan on Saturday and India v England at Bangalore on Sunday are actually competitive-looking fixtures.

Even the meeting of minnows Bangladesh and Ireland in Mirpur on Friday looks like a game with some edge to it.

What have we learned from the opening few days of the tournament? Absolutely nothing.

Thus far, we have had one-sided contests being won by massive margins: 91 runs; 10 wickets (in a game against Kenya where New Zealand needed just eight overs to score the required 70 runs); 210 runs; and 87 runs. These are virtual walkovers in terms of international cricket.

In fairness to the Netherlands, as we predicted last week, the 750/1 shots to win the tournament at least made a game of it against England on Tuesday.

The Dutch went down by six wickets, but not without Ryan ten Doeschate scoring an impressive 119 off 110 balls in their 292 for 6, seeing top-flight bowler Jimmy Anderson being thrashed about the ground for 72 runs off his 10 overs.

In truth, England’s bowling and fielding was appalling, giving their opposition the benefit of at least two wickets in dropped or missed catches and 40 runs in poor fielding. Nevertheless, make a note of the Dutch: they may be on the brink of an upset somewhere in this tournament.

Even England’s skipper, Andrew Strauss, gave his team just 4/10 for their performance. “Certainly with the ball it wasn’t very good,” he said, “our fielding was very shoddy, probably the worst fielding performance I’ve seen from us in the last couple of years.”

“Thankfully, our batsmen dug deep and got us out of jail. We’ve got to be better than that.” Next up, India…

So, for our picks over the next few days:

South Africa, decent fancies for the tournament win, at 1/3 to beat West Indies.

Australia at 2/5 to beat New Zealand.

Bangladesh at 1/4 to beat Ireland.

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