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Chappell pulling for minnows in World Cup

13th February, 2015
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A giant-killing run from one of the minnow nations at the Cricket World Cup would help alleviate concerns over the tournament’s likely monotony, according to former Australian captain Greg Chappell.

In light of the enormous growth of Twenty20 cricket, Chappell believes the 50-over World Cup still has an important role to play in introducing new countries to the sport.

The 43-day tournament begins in Australia and New Zealand on Saturday and will be the last to feature 14 nations, with the field for the 2019 World Cup in England to be reduced to 10.

Chappell said he was pulling for the likes of Afghanistan, the UAE, Scotland or Ireland to get off to a good start and provide the tournament an underdog-style narrative.

“It would be good just to take some of that pressure off the fact that the tournament takes a while to wind up,” he said.

“In each of the World Cups, we’ve seen some upsets and that’s a good thing.

“In that first World Cup, Sri Lanka played and they were a minnow of world cricket at that stage. They’ve gone on and won it twice since then.

“Afghanistan’s obviously a great story – we played against the Afghanistan under-19s team in the Youth World Cup last year. They had some good cricketers.

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“If they can put their internal problems behind them and get more involved in cricket, who’s to say where they might get to in time? There’s no reason why they can’t be as good as Pakistan.”

Chappell, a former coach of India, said the 50-over format’s future was assured as it remained popular on the sub-continent, despite the dominance of the Indian Premier League.

“From a financial point of view, it’s still very important to the game,” he said.

“On television, it’s still a huge game.

“(For) a lot of countries, not only those that are currently playing but might play cricket in the future, Test cricket’s probably a bit too difficult.

“The cost of developing players to play Test cricket is enormous and not everyone can afford to do that.

“I think 50-over cricket could well be the Test cricket of the future for a lot of countries.”

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Chappell predicts Australia’s home-ground advantage and overall depth should see them become just the third host nation to win the World Cup in its history.

But he has warned that underestimating India after their disappointing summer would be a folly.

“They’re pretty resilient,” Chappell said.

“They can easily drop into a bit of a funk but they can easily come out of it as well.

“If they get away to a good start and if they’ve freshened up over the last couple of weeks, they could get on a tear very quickly.

“Whoever gets to the semi-finals, they’ll be four good teams playing well and – from that point onwards – it’s anyone’s game and will depend on the day.”

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