England appears the weakest amongst test playing nations

On the strength of todays performance against New Zealand, England to me at least, appears to be the weakest side in the World Cup amongst the top 8 test playing nations. Based on what one saw today, they seem to have only four players in the entire team capable of making a difference in a game - Pietersen, Collingwood, Flintoff and Panesar. The rest of the team is pretty ordinary and collectively the team appears to justify its low ICC one-day ranking. Vaughan and Bell are worthy test match performers but appear to be pretty pedestrian in the one-day version of the game. Vaughan's dismissal today betrayed his lack of maturity as a one-day batsman. He had been beaten trying to pull time and again prior to his dismissal. The number of times he missed out on his favorite pull shot should have given him some idea of the slowness of the pitch. But that was not to happen and he finally played on trying to pull. What was particularly baffling was that Pietersen had just picked three fours of the previous over. Good sense would have dictated that Vaughan give support to Pietersen rather than chance his own arm.

I will not be surprised if we see a close finish in the game between Kenya and England ahead, especially if Pietersen and Collingwood fail to fire in their batting. The English bowling is definitely much weaker compared to competition. Only Panesar and Flintoff are bowlers who can create opportunities irrespective of conditions. Anderson and Plunkett will be picked off quite easily against tougher opposition. Dalrymple is quite clearly not international class. It might behoove England to think about bringing in either Sajid Mehmood or Jon Lewis in his place unless they have tremendous faith in his batting abilities.

South Africa start favorites for WC 2007

I know I am taking a punt here but based on everything I see at this point of time, I think South Africa have a great chance of winning their first world cup ever. They seem to have all the strengths and firepower necessary to win a big tournament. A good set of experienced one-day batsmen to start of with. Messrs. Graeme Smith, Herchelle Gibbs, Jacque Kallis and Mark Boucher are all one day batsmen who could walk into any one day team in the world (may be not together). All these guys are explosive batsmen and are capable of winning big games on their own. Add the solidity of Ashwell Prince to it and you have a very good batting outfit. Looking at the bowling Makhaya Ntini is clearly one of the best fast bowlers in the world capable of bringing that edge to an attack which other wise is fairly steady with Pollock, Nel and Langeveldt who can be trusted to be very disciplined and not give too much away.

However, two big risks remain. The first is the matter of selection. South Africa needs to be able to field the best 11 for every game without bringing politics into it. More importantly, there should be a semblance of fairness to the process because anything perceived to be unfair could bring a distraction to the team which could prove fatal at a competition of this level. The second major risk that South Africa will have to counter is the absence of a genuine slow bowler in the ranks who could pose questions to the best batsmen in the world on slow pitches. If they are confronted with a slow pitch on an important game and South Africa cannot negate the disadvantage of not having a great spin bowler (due apologies to Graeme Smith), it could prove a handicap that its good batting lineup cannot overcome.

ICC One-day super series: The rest of the world not at its best!

The ICC super series has ended in a most one-sided fashion imaginable. I had always given the Australian side a good chance of winning the series if it was going to be played at home, but I had hoped for a closer contest. It was not to be.

Before the contest began, I had questioned the choice of captain in Shaun Pollock. If he was not considered good enough to captain his own national side, why did the Selectors think he was good enough to captain the Rest of the World. Was it a case of Sunil Gavaskar repaying back some real or imaginary debt to his father Graeme, who if you recall had played alongside Sunil in the first Super Series in 1971 when Gavaskar was a hot-shot rookie.

On hindsight, it appears that the choice of the selection panel itself was not right. None of the World XI selectors had chosen a national one-day side in the past and were thus unaware of the demands that modern day cricket places on a one-day side and the kind of balance necessary for a side to win. The importance of captaincy is far greater in one-day cricket than in tests. The best way to choose a world XI side would have been to get all coaches of major teams together to choose a side. Had Shaun Pollock not played his place in the side, you could have been taken by a more effective one-day bowler like a Rana Naveedul Hassan. Maybe Shoaib Akhtar would not have been chosen.

Pollock's inadequacies as a captain were very evident in the last one-dayer. With Australia on the ropes with Murali and Vettori weaving circles on the Aussies (at 150/5), Pollock decided to bring on the part-time off-spin of Gayle and Sehwag and then himself. This released the pressure and allowed Hussey and Watson to take the match away. Shahid Afridi was never used as a bowler and never at the top of the batting order to bring in an element of surprise. It was also very evident that the side missed Inzamamul Haq badly - someone who could shoulder the burden of batting long and batting fast. Rahul Dravid does not win many one-dayers for his national side and was never expected to lead the batting for the Rest of the World. Lara at 36 years of age is probably feeling over the hill while Kallis was inexplicably out of form. Full credit to Australia for leveraging the hurt and pain of the Ashes loss into positive energy and putting the issue of the "best team in the world" beyond doubt.