Cricket World Cup 2007 – Initial thoughts

The great sporting event is only a month away. I plan to cover it on my blog with my expert analysis and predictions. Afterall, nothing beats ripping off a cricket match after it is over. So do check my blog regularly during the world cup.

Let’s start with basic information.

Here are the groups and the teams within.

Pakistan is in group D with West Indies as major rival, unless they decide to get beaten by Zimbabwe. The tournament starts with Pakistan vs West Indies on March 13. So we will find out right on the 1st day where our team stands.

The first round of world cup doesn’t interest me much. There are four teams in each group, two of them are good and two of them are bound to get eliminated. So we can very well predict who would reach the Super 8 round.

One thing that I don’t like about world cup is that we see teams that are unheard of before the world cup, for example Ireland, Scotland, Bermuda, and so on. Why do these teams show up only in world cup and spoil all the fun? They are destined to be eliminated in first round, and no one takes interest in their matches. So why waste everyone’s time and money? In my opinion these teams should participate in other tournaments like Sharja Cup to get some experience of playing with strong teams, and then they should play the world cup. It doesn’t make any sense for such teams to play only world cup and then disappear. I really liked 1992 world cup in Australia because there were only 9 teams in it. Every team played with every other team and top 4 teams qualified for semi-finals, no groups, no second round, no confusion. Plain and simple. Just in case you forgot, Pakistan won that world cup!

That’s all for now. Let’s hope Pakistan wins again, although I won’t hold my breath for it.