The 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup is underway, the Cricket Handicapping forum is buzzing with talk of the group games and we bring you a total run down of the teams in Group A, odds and analysis on who will make it to the knockout stages and which are the big games to keep an eye on.
Australia
The challenge for the Australians is to maintain their winning ways in conditions in which they have struggled as recently as last autumn, when the Indians gave them a lesson in how to play the game on the sub-continent. In that series they lost their talismanic middle order batsman, Michael Hussey, to injury and he is – much to his very public chagrin – missing from the side this time as well. In addition, Australia have only brought one specialist spinner and one – Jason Krejza – who has only played one one day international. And throughout that series against England there remained the slight suspicion that if you could dismiss Shane Watson early, the rest of the Aussie batting might fall away rapidly. That view was reinforced as Australia lost both of their warm up games out here, with Watson making 33 and 0.
Tournament Betting:
Who to follow:Watson is an obvious choice, but also look at David Hussey (brother of Michael), a much underrated batsman and bowler who should be good value for 30 runs and a wicket or two in most games. Shaun Tait is an erratic performer on the pitch, but provided he stays fit he should be worth at least two wickets in any game simply because he is the quickest bowler in this competition, and by some distance.
Who to avoid:Odds on Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke are always going to be short, just because of who they are. But they are both coming off very poor runs of form and unless you can find a market where you can back them to fail there won't be any point following them.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe are on something of an upwards curve, at least by their standards. The political disputes which have crippled their team over the past few years are largely resolved and some of the disaffected players have returned. This includes batting coach Grant Flower, whose runs and wily left arm spin will be missed. Spin bowling will be their main weapon, especially against the stronger sides, with veteran Ray Price, former captain Prosper Utseya and leg-spinner Graeme Cremer to the fore. Their batting is, on their day, a challenge for any international attack, with Brendan Taylor a much better batsman now that he seems to have given up keeping wicket, whilst it is easy to forget that until very recently Charles Coventry held the record for the highest individual score in any one day international – a score which it took no less a figure than Sachin Tendulkar to beat.
Pakistan
It has been a turbulent twelve months for Pakistan, with no fewer than three changes of captain and, of course, the huge match fixing scandal. Shahid Afridi has managed to hold on to the one day leadership, but his form in the one day game has been inconsistent to say the least. Their squad is a mixture of the very young (half the side are under 24) and the very old (the other half are over 30) and it will be a challenge to blend the two together. Recent one day wins over New Zealand showed promise, but the way that they lost their warm-up game to an England side just beaten 6-1 by Australia suggests that they haven't got it right yet.
New Zealand
The year began so well for Daniel Vettori's men. Coming off of a narrow Test series defeat to India they then beat Pakistan in a T20 competition at home. And then it all went wrong. They were well beaten in both the Test series which followed and the one day contest after that. The final point is particularly significant; not only is this a fifty over tournament, but it meant that New Zealand had lost their last three one day series in a row. Couple this with a heavy defeat to India in their one warm up game for the World Cup and you will see how vital it is to the Black Caps to get out of this group and into the quarter finals. There is no doubting that they have the talent, it is getting all of their players performing at the same time that is the problem.
Sri Lanka
The big question that Sri Lanka need to answer is whether they themselves believe that they can win this tournament. They have the talent, at least as much of it as any other side in the World Cup, but since winning the trophy in 1996 they have come up short every time. This is not just a last hurrah for the mighty Muttiah Muralitharan, other greats such as Mahela Jayawardene, Tillakaratne Dilshan and even captain Kumar Sangakkara are almost certainly playing their last World Cup, too.
Canada
The Canadians are the lowest ranked team in the tournament. They needed a playoff against the cricket world's current darlings, Afghanistan, to get here and they are really little more than a side of very good amateur players. Only opener John Davison and portly spinner WD Balaji Rao have much experience of the first class game, whilst experienced Ashish Bagai now has to handle both keeping wicket and captaining the side. On the other hand, Davison scored one of the fastest hundreds in World Cup history back in 2003, whilst the brutal hitting of Rizwan Cheema almost brought them a surprise win over England in their warm-up game.
Kenya
Kenya will take any victory that they can in this tournament. Since earning full one day international status by reaching the World Cup semi-finals in 2003 their fortunes have largely been downhill and in the 2007 competition they were easy meat for the other full member sides. This side, however, has power at the top of the order with big hitting batsmen such as Seren Walters and the flamboyant Alex Obande. They also have a posse of medium pacers whose skills should be ideally suited to the slow, low, pitches that this tournament will be played on.
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