Sometimes they are hard to ignore. Especially when a clean sweep is involved.
NEO Cricket's "Mission Domination" Campaign was looking misplaced until Yousuf Pathan played that savage innings just when Duckworth and Lewis seemed set to dictate the game. I admit I did not watch the entire innings but from what I did, it seemed brutal and obscene. I wished innings like these come with parental controls.
Unless India get the seniors to play as a team in South Africa, India will go into the World Cup without having played as a unit. But Kapil Dev recently made an interesting observation. Like in 1983 the 2011 World Cup is right after a grueling tour. It was West Indies then and South Africa now.
But more about India's chances a few weeks later...
As my mind wandered towards the World Cup, I noticed the Groups. Here is Group A
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Pakistan
- Sri Lanka
- Zimbabwe
- Canada
- Kenya
Australia, will enter the tournament having possibly lost 2 Ashes series in a row since the last world cup.
New Zealand were reduced to tears in Bangladesh and India. They have followed up their 2007 semi-final appearance by slipping to #7 in the ODI rankings.
Pakistan have spectacularly disintegrated since the murder of their coach Bob Woolmer. And we all thought that was their lowest point
Sri Lanka come into the world cup having been unable to put it across a Sammy led West Indian outfit and were even forced to follow-on. Yes they did win in Australia but statistical numbers involving Australia in 2010 should come with an asterisk; like they do for Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Also Sri Lanka since their finals appearance in 2007 have complied a comfortably losing record 29 wins to 32 losses against the top 6 teams in the world.
And yet, none of this will matter because all of them will most certainly make it to the quarter finals.
So a month and a bit more of meaningless group matches later we will officially know that these 4 teams who have consistently underperformed since the last world cup, will qualify for the knock out stages of the world cup.
