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Are we all excited about the upcoming Cricket World Cup? Or has the glut of cricket lately overloaded our appetites?
I certainly expect the latter, but regardless, it’s almost upon us, and here’s what I think about the teams who are taking part.
Australia
Australia have to be the favourites, especially considering they are on home soil. The Aussies will win most games, but would a loss or two actually be beneficial to them in order to stay focused and not let complacency seep in?
New Zealand
The Kiwis are the joint favourites, probably. Like Australia, they appear almost unbeatable on home soil. I’m a bit worried about how much cricket they’ve played in the last four months. Will that catch up with them towards the business end of the World Cup?
South Africa
The South Africans have looked pretty good recently, but they’ve been playing a team in disarray in the Windies on their home ground, so it’s hard to really gauge where they’re at at the moment.
Australian and New Zealand conditions will be a different story. As usual, they look favourites on paper. As usual, everyone suspects they might stuff up.
India
Suddenly looking shaky, but you wonder whether they just couldn’t be bothered at the moment and are saving all their energy and passion for the World Cup. It’s a dangerous strategy – probably an MS Dhoni strategy.
Their batting will likely make enough runs, but as usual their bowling is looking suspect.
England
The Poms are still not overly convincing. If one part of the batting improves, another part of it seems to break down.
The bowling is reasonable, but nothing too threatening and all looks a bit samey. They are still rank outsiders, and they’re still not sure what their best team is, if they have one at all.
Pakistan
Who the hell knows? They’ve been beaten twice recently by a team of New Zealand club cricketers. But hey, as usual they have talent. If they get on a roll they’ll be dangerous.
Sri Lanka
They were looking the goods a couple of months ago, but since that unexpected tour of India back in November, the wheels have come off a bit. Still, they always seem to be competitive at World Cups, and their batting in particular has some truly classy players.
West Indies
They Windies are in disarray both on and off the field.
Like Pakistan they have some very talented players who on their day can cause headaches. However, the real question is whether they can do it consistently enough for long enough to win the World Cup.
Bangladesh
The Tigers haven’t played much recently. They just need to make sure they beat all the teams they’re supposed to beat, and put up a reasonable fight against the big teams.
Ireland
The Irish are arguably better than Bangladesh. Hopefully they can pull of another upset along the line. They will be everyone’s second-favourite team.
Afghanistan
See Ireland. What a triumph it is that they are even here. A lot of their squad was born in Pakistani refugee camps.
Some higher profile cricketers around the world could do worse than pull these guys aside for a chat in order to get some life perspective.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe are capable of an upset as we saw against Australia a few months back. Unlikely to progress to the next round, though.
Best of the rest
Scotland? They might cause an upset against Bangladesh, but it’s hard to see them going any further.
UAE? No idea. I assume they are rubbish, but I guess they have a fair bit of financial clout, so they should at least benefit the local economies.
My upset prediction
Ireland to beat West Indies on February 16th. Ireland lack talent, but certainly have heart and have shown this before on the world stage.
The West Indies are the complete opposite. There is always an upset somewhere. This looks as good a chance as any to be it.
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