The opening ceremonies have happened and we are officially underway, and we are only mere hours to go until the first ball is bowled in CWC15 and my excitement levels are rising to almost uncontrollable levels.
By now hopefully you have listened to Number Nine and my own thoughts on the teams and how we feel they will all go, and if not I suggest having a listen now. Something which wasn’t on the podcast was an earlier conversation that Number Nine and myself had, which was how cool would it have been to have NZ v Aus at Eden Park as the opening game! However they have gone with a dual opening matches with both NZ and Australia playing on saturday in Christchurch and melbourne, making for a long day and evening of good cricket. After that there are two more great match-ups on Sunday.
Saturday
- New Zealand v Sri Lanka
- Australia v England
Sunday
- South Africa v Zimbabwe
- India v Pakistan
Both NZ and Australia have both played several games so far this year against their respective opponents so really neither game should be any surprise for either team. In both cases the home team has had the rub of the green over their opponents so if you were a safe betting man you would be betting on a a NZ/Aus double – although our good friend Twxt would say that would be a bad bet as the odds would be too low (only $1.80 @ the NZ TAB.) Sport can be a funny thing sometimes and odds are not always everything and both games should be exciting and close; giving a wonderful start to the tournament (but still at least a NZ win!.) In the first match Sri Lanka will have a stronger line-up available than that played in the 7 match series recently in NZ with the return of key strike bowler Lasith Malinga, as well as the availability of Mathews and Herath, both of who sat out several matches during the series. NZ will have a full strength side in which all players have now had a contribution over the 9 games in the lead up to this world cup (6 v Sri Lanka, 2 v Pakistan and 1 v South Africa.) The NZers should still be too strong for Sri Lanka, and should use tomorrows win to give themselves a good bounce into the tournament.
Sunday sees 2 very interesting games; 1st what is likely to be a on-sided game with South Africa v Zimbabwe, although Zimbabwe is playing well and could prove to be a potential banana peel for South Africa. South Africa is in top form and is fresh off smashing the West Indies all around the park to get their batters in the mood for this tournament; although they were well beaten by NZ in a non-international warm-up match the other day. On the other hand Zimbabwe beat Sri Lanka in their warm-up with some ease, which may mean that they might be able to cause an upset on Sunday. If Zimbabwe are able to pull off the unbelievable it would really set the tournament alive  with such a big upset early on.
Last we have The sub-continent derby, with the heavy hitting India taking on the always unpredictable Pakistan. Once again this would appear on paper to be going only one way as India have plenty of star players & appear to be working well together (although they have not been playing well in Australia) whilst Pakistan are looking a bit old and tired. However as we talked about in the podcast there is no real telling with Pakistan; even this mediocre Pakistan side. Overall I would think that India have too much in the batting department to truly be threatened by Pakistan, and Pakistan just don’t have it in return to be able to keep up with the Indian superstars
NineSixFourTwo 