The One Day International Cricket World Cup starts in early October this year so that’s a little over a month away. Of course I am a little excited about it because it’s my favorite sporting tournament of all time and it only happens every 4 years so I’m already having a bit of a look over the teams to see how they might shape up.
This period is pretty important because most teams are well and truly preparing for the big tournament and there are a couple of Bilateral Series about to get underway where final line-ups for the World Cup will no doubt be tested and tweaked. So if you’re a bit of a crickey nuffy like me then it’s worth keeping an eye on these matches so see how teams are shaping up. There are 10 teams competing in the World Cup and 9 of them are involved in these series. Over the next month these are the ones to watch :-
1. South Africa vs Australia
This bilateral series starts on Thursday with 3 x T20 matches followed by 5 x ODI matches. The T20s are likely just warm-ups for the players to acclimatise before the ODI series gets serious. The first 3 ODIs are being played at Bloemfontein in South Africa before the matches move to Centurion and then Johannesburg.
2. England vs New Zealand
This bilateral series starts tomorrow with 4 x T20 matches followed by 4 x ODI matches which is a very similar format to the South African vs Australia series. The ODIs are being played at Cardiff, Southampton, The Oval and Lords in England. It’ll be early Autumn there after a pretty warm (and busy) Summer so it will be interesting to see how worn or dry the pitches are.
3. The Asia Cup
This is another big tournament starting tomorrow and to my eye this is a great preparation for the World Cup. It features India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh which is half of the World Cup teams. It’s also being played in Sri Lanka which will have local sub-continent conditions most similar to India where the World Cup is being played in October. All up it’s 13 x ODI matches, consisting of 6 Group Matches followed by a Super Four (most likely 4 World Cup teams) playing another 6 Matches followed by a Final.
All up I think that the Asian teams have the big advantages of playing in familiar and friendly conditions WITH the extra pressure of Tournament Play in their preparation. If the non-Asian teams are clever they will try to produce some drier, spinning wickets in their own Bilateral Series to give them some relevant practice.
India can often turn out Flat Wickets for their ODI Matches but I have no doubt that Spin Bowling will be a big factor in the World Cup at the pointy end of the tournament so it’ll be wise for the non-Asian teams to prepare for that. It will be very interesting to see how well the curators prepare their pitches in the Bilateral Series, but I am certainly not expecting to see too many Green or Bouncy Wickets over the next month.
