Having got over the shock of having to shell out 70 bucks plus GST for the right to stay up until 4am most nights from the middle of March to the end of April, my thoughts are turning to who will lift the ICC Cricket World Cup trophy. I wonder if they’ll give a refund on the $25 I already pay for the cricket channel since all they can show on ch95 is repeats or delayed telecasts of what am paying through the nose for already? No, I don’t think so either!
I was recently challenged by one of Singapore’s leading expatriate wayang performers to identify the 4 teams who would make it through to the semi-final stage and I quickly realised that this was no simple feat given that the Super 8 format requires each team making it through the group stage to play everyone else except their fellow first round qualifier.
To keep things simple I am going to assume that there will be no shocks in the group stages and so the Super 8 will comprise West Indies, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, England, New Zealand, India and Sri Lanka. Points from the groups are carried forward so all things being equal the Windies and Australia will have a 2 point start. As an Englishman I’m backing England to be in a similar position having got past New Zealand and I reckon India will beat Sri Lanka.
In fact, India having cleverly timed a one day series in the Caribbean at the end of last year are one of my safe bets I expect to make it to the last 4. I know about their ranking but given the depth of their squad and experience of turning out almost 7 days a week for a 50 over game I am going to stick my neck out. A safer choice of course is Australia who I predict will make it through, putting recent underperformances with weakened sides behind them.
So 2 more spaces to fill and I have to admit I am struggling but I’ll fill up one of the vacancies with the Calypso Cricketers based on nothing firmer than them having home advantage. I tried to identify the fourth team by a process of elimination but the only team I could remove by that method is Pakistan and even that is on the assumption that Bob Woolmer doesn’t come up with one of his wizard wheezes to give his boys an edge.
So, anyone fancy Sri Lanka? They’ve got a bit of form in this competition, blasted everyone away in their first appearance and recently drubbed England (but then who hasn’t?) Are England resurgent or were their recent wins the usual rebound they have at the end of a disastrous tour? The conditions are also likely to favour the South Africans and what about New Zealand fresh from beating Australia 3-zip?
So here we go then my 4 semi-finalists are Australia, India, West Indies and one from England and South Africa (the one to go through being the winner of the head to head game). Cop out? Possibly but then my challenger asked for the top 4 and then came back with his own selection of 6!
So let battle commence both on the pitch and on the internet. With games starting just after the kids have gone to bed, going on until the coffee enhanced early hours and such a wide open competition there’s got to be something worth talking about!