The World Cup started in grand style with India scoring a thundering and convincing victory over Bangladesh. This was a revenge for the Indians who had a humiliating defeat in the last WC at West Indies resulting in rolling of many heads.
This time, India gave no chance to Bangladesh with Sehwag literally destroying the Bangladesh bowling with a superb 175. Virat Kohli also chipped in a century thus ensuring that the fight will be between Raina and Yuvraj for the lone batting vacant slot.
Other countries also recorded their victory as expected, though there were some tense moments for England against Holland, Bangladesh against Ireland and SA against WI. If you call an upset, it was for the SL team which lost to Pakistan.
But I won’t consider Pakistan as underdogs and in this World Cup they have a good side with many genuine allrounders. True, their batting is slightly vulnerable, not as strong as their bowling, but their fielding and catching are still atrocious which makes me feel them not the favorites for the Cup.
In this WC, the strengths and weaknesses for each team is going to be different. Since the tournament is played in the sub-continent, batting and bowling will be difficult for the regulars especially for the South Africans and the Aussies.
The ball is not going to come on to the bat and hence the stroke making is going to be difficult. Since the wickets are very slow with low bounce, the real fast bowlers are going to suffer. I can name the bowlers - Dale Stein, Morkel, Tait, and Lee will have a tough time in this Cup.
Spin and slow bowling are going to be the order of the day and as such you see the spinners opening the bowling for South Africa, West Indies and for India too I expect Dhoni to open the bowling with spinner. Even the military medium pacers will have a role to play.
When the wicket is slow and not for stroke making, it is ideal to have ‘gentle’ medium pacers like our former champion cricketer, Jimmy Amarnath who could frustrate the batsmen. Many teams will change their strategy this time and they will not go for genuine pacers. They would pump the side with many all rounders and use them at a suitable time.
This WC will see each side using more than six bowlers, unlike the regular five with ten overs each. The captains nowadays do not give a bowler a long spell and uses him in 3 or 4 spells. This is to avoid the batsmen from settling or getting used to the bowler.
Gone are the days when the batting sides slog during the initial power plays like Jayasurya and Kaluwitharana and go for higher run rate during the first ten or fifteen overs. They would like to have a good start, meaning -without losing wickets. They want to keep enough wickets till the end and go all out during the last ten overs . They want as many batsmen in the side as possible which means they would prefer allrounders.
If you notice one good point in the present WC, all the wicket keepers are genuinely good bats - Sangakarra, Dhoni, Kamran Akmal, McCullum, Prior, Haddin and the greatest of them all - A.B.deVilliers. They all bat within first five batting order and are number one keepers of their respective countries.
Allrounders is a tricky word. There are batsmen who could bowl a bit and bowlers who could bat decently. I call them useful cricketers. My allrounders should be able to bat within first seven position and bowl regularly ten overs. These types of allrounders are very few in today’s cricket. We don‘t have Sobers, Devs, Bothams, Imrans, Hadlees or Procters.
In this WC, we have very few genuine players and J. Kallis is the best among them. Each country has tried their best to select as many allrounders as possible.
India has Yusuf Pathan, Raina and Yuvraj. Perera, Mathews, and Dilshan are for SL. Aussies have Shane Watson, David Hussey and Johnson. Gayle, Bravo and Pollard are terrific allrounders for WI. NZ have Vettori and Styris. Pakistan have, in my opinion, the best all rounders in Hafeez, Afridi and Abdul Razzaq.
With the wicket keepers becoming main batsmen of each team, they are also considered as allrounders. So in this World Cup I guess allrounders will play a leading role and the captains will use more bowlers (even part timers).
India won the cup in 1983 through allrounders in England where the wickets were slow in nature. We had Kapil Dev, Sandeep Patil, Yashpal Sharma, Madan lal, Binny, Shastri, Kirti Azad and the great Amarnath who got the Player of the World Cup award. I guess the side with more allrounders will win the cup this time.
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