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Australia still the team to beat at cricket's World Cup

By: Andrew Begg

Despite a bad run of injuries and form, Australia is tipped to prevail in the eight-week cricket extravaganza underway in the Caribbean

Posted: 12/03/2007

If there’s one thing this World Cup isn’t, its much-anticipated – a well-worn sporting cliché if ever there was one. There is so much international cricket around today that only a major series such as the Ashes can be described in those terms; and with the last Ashes series still reverberating in the minds of many cricket followers, its a hard act to follow, even for a World Cup. But cricket being cricket, the eight-week extravaganza in the Caribbean will be far from lacking in interest.

Perhaps the single most interesting aspect of the World Cup will be in seeing whether Australia, indisputably the world’s best team since the late 1980s – but which is just beginning to show chinks in its armour – is fallible after all. After unexpected losses to England and New Zealand in interminable, bit-part one-day tournaments unnecessarily tacked onto the end of its cricket season, Australia’s reputation as being close to invincible is at risk. More than half of the team that comprehensively thrashed England and won back the Ashes will have retired by this time next year. Gone already are the world’s best ever spin bowler, Shane Warne, and batsman Justin Langer, both of whom have been automatic selections in Australian teams of the last decade. Glenn McGrath, who has taken more wickets than any pace bowler in Test history, and John Buchanan, the master tactician and coach, have already announced that this World Cup will be their finale. The hugely talented batsman Matthew Hayden and batsman-wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist are both the wrong side of 35 and, while Father Time waits for no man, its likely the selectors have given them the assurance of retiring when they feel the time is right. Its not as if their form is flagging: Hayden’s most recent knock of 181 not out was an Australian record ODI score and Gilchrist came a whisker of scoring the fastest Test century ever against the English.

Australia’s World Cup squad flies to the Caribbean with a number of injuries – Hayden won’t play in the early matches due to a broken toe, captain Ricky Ponting missed the New Zealand tour with a bad back as did Gilchrist who was rested, their frontline bowler Brett Lee’s ankle ligament injury rules him out completely and Andrew Symonds has a debilitating bicep injury. Michael Clark also missed the New Zealand tour with a sore hip and Michael Hussey, Australia’s go-to man, is experiencing a loss of form.

If Australia is coming back to the field, what of the contenders? Certainly the competition will be more even. As England’s captain Michael Vaughan said recently, any team can beat any other team, given the day. In Australia English cricket passed through a painful osmosis, and the veneer of gloss it closed on by beating the home side in the one-day tournament will carry over to the World Cup. Maybe this confidence boost will be all the likes of Collingwood, Bell and Dalrymple need to support and stand alongside England’s proven match winners, Flintoff and Pietersen. Although England enters the tournament as dark horses, they seem to be fielding a team that is close to full strength.

South Africa is deservedly the top-ranked side and on paper looks very strong in every department – batsmen Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs and the explosive Mark Boucher are all in form with the capacity to take a bowling attack apart and on the small West Indian grounds should be able to accumulate high innings totals. Its fielding is great; its bowling may have lost its bite with Pollock bowling no more than medium pace but Ntini is still as fast as ever. Ably led by the pugnacious, sometimes abrasive Graeme Smith it is likely to do extremely well.

Both England and South Africa have momentum propelling them, an important ingredient in limited-overs cricket, and so too does New Zealand, having beaten an undermanned Australia 3-0 at home in a short February tournament. The quiet achievers of cricket, New Zealand’s final match against Australia, in which it recovered from a hazardous 4-41 to score 350 to win, was a wonderfully stirring victory – particularly since lesser lights like Craig McMillan and Brian McCullum stepped up to the plate and punished some wayward Australian bowling, blasting it to all parts of the ground. New Zealand’s win in that match was all the more impressive for coming without its two best bowlers, Bond and Vettori, and Jacob Oram, another batsman perfectly capable of taking apart any attack.

India has about it a team that deserves a victory that is rightfully theirs. Its long-standing captaincy feud seems to have resolved itself in a timely fashion, as has the bad feeling between coach Greg Chappell and Sourav Ganguly. On paper, India is possibly the best batting team in the world, with players like Ganguly, the mercurial Mahendra Dhoni, the still majestic Sachin Tendulkar and captain Rahul Dravid all dependable and reliable batsmen. It’s most punishing batsman Sehwag is in the Caribbean despite a nightmarish run of form; all India needs is for Sehwag to fire too, and it could be worldbeater. But whatever strengths it has in the batting department, its bowling lacks the same killer instinct. India made it to the final of the last World Cup but was easily knocked over by Australia; this time round, its difficult to see them going that same distance.

Like India, Pakistan is always unpredictable – it can be a world beating combination one day, and the next the team can utterly fold and be bowled out for less than 100. Its great batsman Mohamed Yousuf will be there as will the completely original Shahid Afridi and Inziman ul Haq, but its chances of going all the way are severely reduced with its entire first choice bowling attack of Shoaib, Asif and Razzaq unavailable through injury. The other sub-continent team, Sri Lanka, has the world’s best spinner (since Warne’s retirement) Muttiah Muralitaharan, a great captain in Jayawardene – who led Sri Lanka to an amazing away series victory against England, the punishing wicketkeeper batsman, Sangakarra, and a very dangerous bowler in Lasith Malinga. Sri Lanka has won it before and it would be wonderful to see it win again.

The home side, West Indies, won the first two World Cups in 1975 and 1979 and was a beaten finalist in 1983 but haven’t made it to the finals yet – indeed its form seems to have waned as West indies cricket too has waned since the halcyon days of their extreme pace bowling quartet. Thise days are long gone but there is still the likes of Brian Lara at the helm, and attacking batsman Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh sarwan. Again their bowlers seem lacking – would they be able to bowl out a team like Australia, or South Africa? A home team has never won a World Cup and I doubt the West Indies will disturb that pattern.

Likewise, while it would be nice to see one of the minnows of world cricket like the internally rent Zimbabwe or the underfunded Bangladesh do well, its difficult to see them making progress beyond the group stages. No doubt though the experience will do them well, as it will the other nations like Canada, the Netherlands, Namibia and Bermuda.

So who will win? Australia doesn’t like coming second in any sport, and the series losses to England and New Zealand will have reinforced its hunger. Australia will have spent the last few weeks concentrating on ironing out the kinks in its game. Its captain and torch bearer Ricky Ponting will return, as will Clarke, Clark, Symonds and Gilchrist – all first team selections who missed the New Zealand tour. My feeling is that Australia will meet either New Zealand or South Africa in the final, and prevail in a close fought match.

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