My World Cup predictions

The World Cup shootout is imminent and it’s time to start making a few bold predictions and nail my colours to the mast. This World Cup provides hope for several nations and as many as eight teams (I guess more realistically five) could, as I punch the keyboard, be engaged in a team meeting plotting their path to the very sharp end of the tournament.

Over the next six weeks of challenges, some will stumble and fall at crucial junctures, while others will provide scenes of unbridled joy and celebration for their faithful followers. That is why this event, although long, is so eagerly awaited and considered the pinnacle event of this game. The crown is heavy but enormously gratifying.

My opening gambit regarding eight potential victors has inferred that I believe one major cricketing country will be summarily culled along the way and will join five minnows as unlucky losers and trudge prematurely back to the drawing board. With a heavy heart I predict that the once invincible and infectious gang from the Caribbean will be early casualties and despondency and despair will again resonate throughout that sun-drenched region, prompting further introspection.

Forget the other non-test playing nations. They will have their moments in the limelight and fleeting giddiness will rule their day, but serious threats they will not be.

This World Cup, given the location, conditions and facilities, will this time around be won by game breakers. The grounds are smaller and generally the tracks will be flat but do not discount the possibility that the odd ostensibly under prepared surface may raise its ugly head and therefore its profile when the hosts and more regionally fancied competitors are not locked in battle.

That being said the blue print for victory will be large totals, suitably accelerated by power hitting, perhaps as early as the middle overs rather than just at the death. Make no mistake, the crafty management of batting power plays will be a major factor. Strategy and tactics will be of supreme significance and when the playing fields are levelled, as they generally are in Asia, the smarter the skipper, the higher the percentage of triumph. Seizing the moment and capitalising when warranted will illuminate the visionaries.

Listen up, as this will surprise you. I don’t think Australia will make the semifinals. They are a shadow of the team that enchanted when hoisting silverware in previous World Cups and to emphasise my aforementioned point, now possess very few game breakers. Their superstars of yesteryear are long gone and so are stability, structure and genuine belief. The responsibility on the shoulders of match winners Ponting, Watson and Clarke is gargantuan and collectively burdensome.

So who do I believe will be standing before their national flags and belting out their anthems come semifinal time in Colombo and Mohali?

South Africa will be present and well served by their core of sparkling players who can alter the course of a game in a matter of overs. So will the now hard-edged and self-assured and experienced Sri Lankans. That leaves two more. They will be, in my opinion, co-hosts India and a rejuvenated England who will have galvanised once again under the direction and resolve of Flower and Strauss.

From then on it’s anybody’s guess as huge chunks of good fortune, composure and astute awareness will be required to cross the line on cricket’s biggest stage in Mumbai come April.

Personally I favour the entire population of India to erupt in celebration.