The best four teams are in the World Cup semifinals. The 10 others were just not good enough to be there and the four who went down in the quarteRfinals were all thoroughly beaten. No team can nurse a real grievance about not being involved in the mid-week action, not even Bangladesh which made such a fuss about that misjudged no ball called for the height of the full toss.
The irony is two teams that have never crossed the semi final barrier are set to face each other on Tuesday while the four-time champion Australia are drawn against two-time winner and defending champion India. That is the luck of the draw. The Thursday encounter could be called the virtual final as the winner there should have the edge in the final.
The bookies favour Australia and South Africa in the semi finals and they are good judges of form rather than potential. William Hill reckons Australia are 125/100 for the cup (Rs 125 profit on an investment of Rs 100), South Africa 175/100, New Zealand 250/100 and India 300/100 for the cup while the match odds are: South Africa 72/100 versus New Zealand 110/100 and Australia 44/100 versus India 175/100.
India’s fantastic ability to play the big ODI tournaments well is not quite factored in. They could be virtual minnows in the Test arena now unless they are playing at home and they are beatable in T20s, but when it comes to ODIs they are a battle force which responds best to adrenalin flow.
Their coruscating unbeaten run in which they have hardly been tested has come on top of some concerted team performances more than individual brilliance. India are at their best when they play as a team.
On the other hand, Team India have not beaten Australia all southern summer. That could have little relevance in a 50:50 game at the Sydney Cricket Ground, which has been known traditionally to favour spinners even when it is hard and fast because it offers them bounce. Imran Tahir demonstrated the value of bounce in the quarter final against Sri Lanka.
The flatter deck at Eden Park in Auckland might even out the odds between the eternal bridesmaids New Zealand and South Africa. One of them will drop the choker’s tag and figure in the final. In that sense there is poetic justice to be seen in the draw, which naturally enough allowed the league group toppers not to face each other till the summit.
Three cracking games are in the offing and the team with the biggest match-fixer tag among this lot of 14 will not be there, which just means what we will have is a fair verdict decided by merit rather than any extraneous factor. Given the background of cricket’s betting intrigues, that is as much as the game could ask. The winner of 2015 will be a real winner in more sense than one.
The nature of the drop-in pitches is such that the toss will be more crucial than normal. That was probably not true in the quarter finals where South Africa and Australia enjoyed bowling first in the conditions while the other quarters saw the bat dominate against attacks that were not quite up to an intensity level expected in the knockouts.
The West Indies are probably not to blame because they had to bowl first on the best belter of the competition.
If the projection of a potentially high score at the Eden Park is a given, the toss will have a bearing on which team ends up with the ultimate choker tag. On a more lively SCG pitch, the toss might not be that big a factor as we saw when the Proteas bowled first against the Sri Lankans.
In the old days, the toss was a huge factor as the team batting first won all World Cup finals till 1996 when the Sri Lankans changed history. Since then the chasing is not to be ruled out as an option.
