Quote:
Originally Posted by ClubFlames
This world cup is a round robin style, every team plays each other once and the top 4 in the standings advance to the semis.
Top 4 predictions?
IMO it will be:
England
India
Australia
NZ or South Africa (they are closely matched)
|
I agree with your top 3, and like most pundits I fully expect an England - India final. England have been blasting crazy scores at home lately and they have dominated every ODI series they've played for at least the last year. India seem to have a world class player in every spot of their lineup, and a team of just their bench players could probably make the top 4. Australia seem to have their sh*t together again with Smith and Warner back just in time (how convenient). I expect it to be a bloodbath between South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand for the 4th spot. Bangladesh and West Indies probably won't be much of a factor, although West Indies did just score over 400 in a warmup yesterday.
New Zealand would need a herculean effort from Williamson, Taylor and Boult in order to make the top 4. Our openers have gone nowhere but downhill since the last world cup. After Brendon McCullum retired Tom Latham fell flat on his face in the #2 spot (though he has rebounded as a WK batting at 5 or 6), then we went with T20 specialist Colin Munro. He has not had any success at all in ODIs and yet NZ has been repeatedly trying him for nearly 2 years there. At the very end of our home summer we tried Henry Nicholls at #2 and he's been a little better but has only a couple of games as an opener. And of course Martin Guptill has fallen from a world class opener to a cheap and quick out, with hardly any big scores in the last year.
In the bowling department it's all on Trent Boult. While the likes of Henry, Southee, Ferguson, Santner and Sodhi are all capable of a wonder game once in a while, the only one who can consistently get wickets and keep the run rate down is Boult. If he is bagging 3-4 per game and Williamson and Taylor put up 100+ partnerships on a regular basis then we have a chance, but our depth is not particularly intimidating for the opposing teams.