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For some people it’s the FIFA world cup or the rugby equivalent. For others, poor souls, it’s the grand final of Strictly. But for many – and more in Scotland than tends to be acknowledged – the set-piece occasion to really set the anticipatory juices flowing is the cricket world cup. The tenth edition gets underway this Saturday (8:30am GMT) when two of the three co-hosts, Bangladesh and India, face each other over 50 overs in Mirpur.
Having said that, the past couple of tournaments (2003 in South Africa, 2007 in the West Indies) haven’t quite done the trick – due to a combination of no free-to-air live TV coverage, the bloatedness of the schedule compared with the lean days of yore, and the sustained period of Australian hegemony.
The TV problem is pretty much unavoidable these days: the stay-at-home cricketista’s choice is to pay the Murdoch shilling or settle for the nightly BBC highlights package. For live non-Sky coverage there is always the Cricinfo text feed (the modern version of Ceefax-watching), or trusty old TMS.
As for the bulking-up, the 1975 and 1979 tournaments each involved just eight teams, 15 matches and 15 days. There was almost a festival air to proceedings – helped by the Caribbean-cavalier dominance of the period – and much of that has been lost with increased commercialism.
The 2011 version will be shorter (just) than the 51-match, 47-day drudgery of 2007, but the slow start remains a problem, especially at a time when – as Sharda Ugra notes in an excellent Cricinfo preview – the 50-over format is under threat from Twenty20.
The tournament will be 30 days old before the group stage slouches to its close – at which point six of the 14 teams will be eliminated. If – as seems very likely – these six prove to be Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya from Group A, and Bangladesh, Ireland and the Netherlands from Group B, there will be a strong sense of a month having been wasted. The real 11-day shootout starts with the first quarter-final on 23 March.
As for the Australian reign, one doesn’t have to be expressing Antipodean antipathy to argue that it would be for the general good if some other outfit gave them a right good stuffing. In both 2003 and 2007 they played 11, won 11, and their last defeat was against Pakistan at Headingley on 23 May 1999 (when they went on to win the tournament anyway). The Australians have had, as the saying goes, a good innings. Now it’s someone else’s turn.
So who will lift the trophy in Mumbai on 2 April? Too hard to call, really – this is the most open tournament for some time. Subcontinental pitches and conditions will be a big factor, such that three of the four “local” teams – sadly not Bangladesh, despite their recent improvement – will expect to do well (and each of the last five finals has featured a team from the subcontinent).
Although the 1992 winners Pakistan are always unpredictable, this surely won’t be their year. Shahid Afridi and co will entertain, but too many top players have been sent to the naughty step.
By contrast, India are favourites to repeat their 1983 triumph. With Virender Sehwag blazing away, the great Sachin Tendulkar enjoying what shouldn’t really be termed an Indian summer, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni aspiring to be an Indian version of Adam Gilchrist, there won’t be any shortage of runs. If Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh (who has also recently discovered how to make Test centuries) stay fit, the bowling looks good, too.
1996 winners Sri Lanka could well make quiet progress – not for nothing do some bookmakers have them as second-favourites. Murali would like nothing more than to wrap up his career with a win, the batting triumvirate of Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Thilan Samaraweera would play for Barcelona if they were footballers, while Tillakaratne Dilshan will have days when his crazy shovel-scoops pay off.
Then there are the Australians… The batting behemoth of recent years has left the building, and the loss of Michael Hussey through injury is a major blow. And yet, and yet. The baggy greens know how to win like no other team, and semi-underdog status might suit them. Shane Watson has become a tremendous one-day all-rounder (witness his recent wonderful 161 against England), and Ricky Ponting, like Tendulkar, will not want to see a great one-day career fizzle out.
The bowling is a worry, though, and if they do get flayed on the flat pitches then the batting won’t be able to repeatedly savage attacks and salvage games as it did in the days of Matthew Hayden et al.
New Zealand are the dark horses. No team has a greater claim on world cup overperformance – something that tends to be forgotten due to their failure ever to reach a final. Five losing semis is a remarkable record, and with the retro-bespectacled Daniel Vettori in charge and Brendon McCullum capable of trashing any attack, they should again reach the knockout stage. A place in the final? Probably not – but no one could begrudge this most pragmatic of teams an unexpected win.
What to make of the West Indies? Once so dominant, then so dismal. Chris Gayle will wage a private mayhem war with Sehwag, Shivnarine Chanderpaul is much more than a stodgy nurdler, and there are useful bits-and-pieces players. But think of the eleven that took to the field for the 1979 final – Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Kallicharran, Lloyd, King, Murray, Roberts, Garner, Holding, Croft – and it’s clear why the current crop won’t win the cup.
Which leaves the two teams who really really want it: South Africa and England. The Proteas have played in only the five most recent tournaments, and have lost in the semis three times. Their reputation is for bad luck and innumeracy with regard to rain-delays – the absurd recalculation that left them needing 21 runs off one ball against England in 1992, and Shaun Pollock’s tragi-comic misreading of Duckworth-Lewis against Sri Lanka in 2003. This is allied to overconfidence and carelessness in crucial situations, most notably the Herschelle Gibbs “You’ve just dropped the world cup” incident in the 1999 semi against Australia.
South Africa will have learnt from all that hurt, and Graeme Smith’s team could bulldoze everything in its path, with AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and the relentlessly efficient Jacques Kallis leading the batting, while Dale Steyn has become a bowler to be feared.
The English failure to win one of the early competitions looks ever more curious as the decades pass. Gary Gilmour’s spell of 6 for 14 in the 1975 semi was seismic at the time, and there’s an argument to be made that the natural born winners have never come as close to the trophy since then, three losing finals notwithstanding.
The English batting remains fickle. Kevin Pietersen is more oh-my-god than demigod, but the weird idea of sticking him in to open might just work. Ian Bell has a great tournament in him but might be drifting out of form after an impressive Ashes. Andrew Strauss has been reinvented as a Watsonian belter, while Matt Prior dropping down the order to sort-of fill the gap left by the injured Eoin Morgan (who must be even more gutted than Hussey) feels like the right decision albeit for the wrong reason. And the return of Ravi Bopara, again for Morgan, might just be timely. But England are capable of 391 for 4 in one match, 93 all out in the next.
More than with any other team, the English bowling is key. This will be a batsman’s cup in a batsman’s era, so a decent collection of medium-pace wobblers, reverse-swingers and quirky spinners could build frustration, slow the scoring rate and win tight matches. That could mean England.
The Caledonian Mercury prediction? Ahead of the Ashes series, your correspondent correctly suggested Australia 1 England 3 to his across-the-street neighbour, then stupidly omitted to mention this in the preview piece. So it’s time to be bolder – and in all probability wrong – for the world cup. India to beat South Africa in the final, with the losing semi-finalists comprising any two of England, Australia and Sri Lanka.
Clik here to view.
For some people it’s the FIFA world cup or the rugby equivalent. For others, poor souls, it’s the grand final of Strictly. But for many – and more in Scotland than tends to be acknowledged – the set-piece occasion to really set the anticipatory juices flowing is the cricket world cup. The tenth edition gets underway this Saturday (8:30am GMT) when two of the three co-hosts, Bangladesh and India, face each other over 50 overs in Mirpur.
Having said that, the past couple of tournaments (2003 in South Africa, 2007 in the West Indies) haven’t quite done the trick – due to a combination of no free-to-air live TV coverage, the bloatedness of the schedule compared with the lean days of yore, and the sustained period of Australian hegemony.
The TV problem is pretty much unavoidable these days: the stay-at-home cricketista’s choice is to pay the Murdoch shilling or settle for the nightly BBC highlights package. For live non-Sky coverage there is always the Cricinfo text feed (the modern version of Ceefax-watching), or trusty old TMS.
As for the bulking-up, the 1975 and 1979 tournaments each involved just eight teams, 15 matches and 15 days. There was almost a festival air to proceedings – helped by the Caribbean-cavalier dominance of the period – and much of that has been lost with increased commercialism.
The 2011 version will be shorter (just) than the 51-match, 47-day drudgery of 2007, but the slow start remains a problem, especially at a time when – as Sharda Ugra notes in an excellent Cricinfo preview – the 50-over format is under threat from Twenty20.
The tournament will be 30 days old before the group stage slouches to its close – at which point six of the 14 teams will be eliminated. If – as seems very likely – these six prove to be Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya from Group A, and Bangladesh, Ireland and the Netherlands from Group B, there will be a strong sense of a month having been wasted. The real 11-day shootout starts with the first quarter-final on 23 March.
As for the Australian reign, one doesn’t have to be expressing Antipodean antipathy to argue that it would be for the general good if some other outfit gave them a right good stuffing. In both 2003 and 2007 they played 11, won 11, and their last defeat was against Pakistan at Headingley on 23 May 1999 (when they went on to win the tournament anyway). The Australians have had, as the saying goes, a good innings. Now it’s someone else’s turn.
So who will lift the trophy in Mumbai on 2 April? Too hard to call, really – this is the most open tournament for some time. Subcontinental pitches and conditions will be a big factor, such that three of the four “local” teams – sadly not Bangladesh, despite their recent improvement – will expect to do well (and each of the last five finals has featured a team from the subcontinent).
Although the 1992 winners Pakistan are always unpredictable, this surely won’t be their year. Shahid Afridi and co will entertain, but too many top players have been sent to the naughty step.
By contrast, India are favourites to repeat their 1983 triumph. With Virender Sehwag blazing away, the great Sachin Tendulkar enjoying what shouldn’t really be termed an Indian summer, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni aspiring to be an Indian version of Adam Gilchrist, there won’t be any shortage of runs. If Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh (who has also recently discovered how to make Test centuries) stay fit, the bowling looks good, too.
1996 winners Sri Lanka could well make quiet progress – not for nothing do some bookmakers have them as second-favourites. Murali would like nothing more than to wrap up his career with a win, the batting triumvirate of Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Thilan Samaraweera would play for Barcelona if they were footballers, while Tillakaratne Dilshan will have days when his crazy shovel-scoops pay off.
Then there are the Australians… The batting behemoth of recent years has left the building, and the loss of Michael Hussey through injury is a major blow. And yet, and yet. The baggy greens know how to win like no other team, and semi-underdog status might suit them. Shane Watson has become a tremendous one-day all-rounder (witness his recent wonderful 161 against England), and Ricky Ponting, like Tendulkar, will not want to see a great one-day career fizzle out.
The bowling is a worry, though, and if they do get flayed on the flat pitches then the batting won’t be able to repeatedly savage attacks and salvage games as it did in the days of Matthew Hayden et al.
New Zealand are the dark horses. No team has a greater claim on world cup overperformance – something that tends to be forgotten due to their failure ever to reach a final. Five losing semis is a remarkable record, and with the retro-bespectacled Daniel Vettori in charge and Brendon McCullum capable of trashing any attack, they should again reach the knockout stage. A place in the final? Probably not – but no one could begrudge this most pragmatic of teams an unexpected win.
What to make of the West Indies? Once so dominant, then so dismal. Chris Gayle will wage a private mayhem war with Sehwag, Shivnarine Chanderpaul is much more than a stodgy nurdler, and there are useful bits-and-pieces players. But think of the eleven that took to the field for the 1979 final – Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Kallicharran, Lloyd, King, Murray, Roberts, Garner, Holding, Croft – and it’s clear why the current crop won’t win the cup.
Which leaves the two teams who really really want it: South Africa and England. The Proteas have played in only the five most recent tournaments, and have lost in the semis three times. Their reputation is for bad luck and innumeracy with regard to rain-delays – the absurd recalculation that left them needing 21 runs off one ball against England in 1992, and Shaun Pollock’s tragi-comic misreading of Duckworth-Lewis against Sri Lanka in 2003. This is allied to overconfidence and carelessness in crucial situations, most notably the Herschelle Gibbs “You’ve just dropped the world cup” incident in the 1999 semi against Australia.
South Africa will have learnt from all that hurt, and Graeme Smith’s team could bulldoze everything in its path, with AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and the relentlessly efficient Jacques Kallis leading the batting, while Dale Steyn has become a bowler to be feared.
The English failure to win one of the early competitions looks ever more curious as the decades pass. Gary Gilmour’s spell of 6 for 14 in the 1975 semi was seismic at the time, and there’s an argument to be made that the natural born winners have never come as close to the trophy since then, three losing finals notwithstanding.
The English batting remains fickle. Kevin Pietersen is more oh-my-god than demigod, but the weird idea of sticking him in to open might just work. Ian Bell has a great tournament in him but might be drifting out of form after an impressive Ashes. Andrew Strauss has been reinvented as a Watsonian belter, while Matt Prior dropping down the order to sort-of fill the gap left by the injured Eoin Morgan (who must be even more gutted than Hussey) feels like the right decision albeit for the wrong reason. And the return of Ravi Bopara, again for Morgan, might just be timely. But England are capable of 391 for 4 in one match, 93 all out in the next.
More than with any other team, the English bowling is key. This will be a batsman’s cup in a batsman’s era, so a decent collection of medium-pace wobblers, reverse-swingers and quirky spinners could build frustration, slow the scoring rate and win tight matches. That could mean England.
The Caledonian Mercury prediction? Ahead of the Ashes series, your correspondent correctly suggested Australia 1 England 3 to his across-the-street neighbour, then stupidly omitted to mention this in the preview piece. So it’s time to be bolder – and in all probability wrong – for the world cup. India to beat South Africa in the final, with the losing semi-finalists comprising any two of England, Australia and Sri Lanka.
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