I was thinking that Pakistan has a very good chance this year –good bowlers, very good batsmen, good depth in the XI, Bob Woolmer and a track record of doing quite well in the world cups in recent times if they do not run into India. However, this was before Asif and Akhtar found themselves out of the tournament.

Coming to the actual tournament, round 1 matches versus the minnows are very much like the warm up matches which precede them. Given that the world cup will carry on for nearly 2 months and we will see a marathon of matches, the semi finalists will in all likelihood be those who deserve their spot. My semi finalists, in order - Australia, South Africa, India and West Indies.

Semi-finals –

Australia over West Indies;
South Africa over India

Finals –

Australia over South Africa.

Given the unpredictability of the one day game, the cliché – ‘any of the top 8 teams can reach the semis is very true.

It will be an unprecedented and a huge accomplishment, even by Australian standards, if they do manage to win the world cup for a third consecutive time. The West Indies couldn’t do it in 1983 when they were thwarted by India the current era where one day cricket is more understood by the teams compared to the 70s and 80s, and the game is more competitive on the whole, it would be a much bigger achievement.

Where individuals are concerned, I am looking at Nathan Bracken and Sourav Ganguly to have huge world cups. Bracken has been nothing short of exceptional for Australia in the last few seasons. However, 2007 has been below par for him and he will look to reverse that. Ganguly, on the other hand, has had a tough last couple of years for various reasons. With the 2007 world cup, in all likelihood to be his last, he will look to go out gloriously.

However, given out of the blue performers in the world cup, be it teams (India in ‘83, Pakistan in ‘92, Sri Lanka in ‘96) or players (Gary Gilmour, Geoff Allott), I am not very sure how any prediction can be made with a lot of conviction. So take the above predictions with spoonfulls of salt.

Now, who do you think will win the world cup?

Picture taken by Smither Jones.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 4:59 am and is filed under Cricket. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.