Who here believes Aus won't be able to retain the Cup??

[wahindiawah]

LOL!

They lost to Pak coz they were outplayed by Akhter, not coz of offseason or so!

Before that they lost to NZ, now what have u to say about that??

Face the fact, Aus is no longer the best team!

 

[masterblaster]

When you think Australia are down they come back at you. They have fire, passion and intensity as well as talent. But they need Steve Waugh and Mark Waugh badly.

 

[Andre]

Australia still can win the World Cup. People said the same things when we sacked Mark Taylor and Ian Healy. We all saw what happened. While the Waugh's won't be replaced easially, they wont play forever either. Give the young guys a go with pleanty of time to chop and change should things go wrong before the World Cup.

 

[LankanPrince]

After Ricky Ponting took over as captain, they have lost their edge. However if they recall on form Mark Waugh and Steve Waugh their stake to World Cup is more secure. However don't write off teams such as South Africa even though they were heavily beaten by the Aussies.

 

[luckyeddie]

Is a Day/Night match still regarded as a bit of a lottery?

Does anyone possess stats regarding teams batting first/secord winning the game under floodlights?

In Group 'A', the England v India and England v Pakistan games are to be staged under lights.

In Group 'B', the following games are day/nighters :
South Africa v West Indies
Sri Lanka v South Africa
West Indies v South Africa.

Does this give anyone an advantage or not?

 

[Anil]

Australia are defintely one of the favourites for the cup with or without the Waughs. On current form, Pakistan can pose a strong challenge. So can SA playing at home. They have a lot to prove to their home fans, remove the tag of chokers, Aussie bunnies and what not. England, New Zealand and India are defintely strong enough to upset one or two of these teams on their day, but whether they have it in them to be consistently good and go all the way is doubtful atleast at present. Sri Lanka is another team which can mount a good challenge if their batsmen click. More likely than not, the winner is going to be one of the first three mentioned.

 

[Neil Pickup]

IMO, The lights make a huge difference to the batsmen. The team batting first, if the sides are equally matched, will have a much better chance of winning, and this could have a huge effect on the England-India Group A game (which could well be a Qualification decider).

Take the Eng-SL game that I was at Trent Bridge in June, for example. SL still had the England total in their sights when the sun went down and the lights came on. Cue collapse and Game Over...

 

[Top_Cat]

I can offer some personal experience here. As someone who's played under lights, I can tell you it's a distinct disadvantage batting under lights. The white ball is 'heavy' enough under broad daylight (don't ask me why; I just found it hurt my hands more batting against a white ball) but under lights, it feels like you can barely get it off the cut portion.

The disadvantage in bowling is obviously the dew (possibly explainging the 'heavier' ball). The ball still swings if you're good enough but the movement off the seam is much less. Because I'm a swing bowler, obviously I wasn't affected (and sometimes the ball swings much MORE) but still it was annoying. However, us bowlers sure appreciate the heavier ball.