Worst World Cup "on paper"
 

Ok, so everyone knows that Australia aren't as good "on paper" as they have been for quite some time.

However, having watched a number of the other major countries over the past few months, the standard of the other teams in this WC really appears to be relatively poor as well

SA are representative of most teams in that they have an excellent core group of players but have precious little to back it up

SL have some high quality batsmen but will only field a couple of decent bowlers

Ditto India

Ditto NZ but with only one bowler

Pakistan are anyone's guess

WI are no hope

Only England look balanced but they lack players of the highest quality

I'd go as far to say that every major nation, bar possibly England, could point to virtually any team that they have fielded in the past 15-20 years and declare them better "on paper"

Dont get me wrong, I'm expecting an exciting contest as there is no longer a dominant team, but the overall standard simply doesnt appear to be there IMO

I think the only exception to your rule, alongwith England, might be India. This seems to be their strongest team fielded in a wc to date. That is debatable too. But you do have a very valid point. Pakistan might be fielding their weakest ever team since the 1983 wc.

Not sure about the others, but there haven't been too many better Indian ODI sides. This is quite possibly the best Indian ODI side post-1983.

Interesting post, and for once (:p) I agree with social.

However, both the format and that lack of a genuinely stand out side (bar perhaps India) should IMO make for quite an exciting tournament.

Australia in the last tournament were fantastic to watch, I don't think you'll find many ODI sides as good as the 2007 side - but watching them utterly smash the competition out of sight did get a bit boring as the tournament wore on.

For you maybe :)

I have doubts over whether I'll see a side as powerful as the WC07 one assembled, well, any time in the next few decades. So of course this WC will be weaker when that is the benchmark.

It's a known fact that world cups are a better spectacle when they're played on turf pitches opposed to paper ones.

I agree - not a great WC on paper in terms of the strength of the teams.

The format is ****ed too. No Super Sixes, just straight to the QFs. This has the double whammy of less good games, and at least under the Super Sixes everyone played each other and therefore you had the most deserving four teams advancing to the Semi Final stage.

I think the format from the 1999 World Cup in England was the best - it was the best World Cup I have seen.

12 nations – 2 Group of 6 (9 test playing nations + 3 qualifiers)
Super Six Stage
Semi-finals
Final

NZ and Pak seem particularly weak.

Pakistan's weakness is overstated, their ODI team will be pretty decent. Losing Asif, Amir and Butt doesn't really weaken their limited overs teams all that much.

New Zealand are an interesting one, if we had Bond you could argue this would be our best world cup team in a while. Yet without him our pace attack seems toothless, still got plenty of potential despite all our humiliating recent losses.

This is going to be a good world cup because pretty much anyone could get to the semi finals.

100% agreed re the format; it was the fact that quarter-finals meant the group stages were rendered, to all intents and purposes, redundant in 1996 that lead to the creation of the "Super Sixes" in 99. But after India and Pakistan failed last time the ICC obviously feel the need to cook the books again to (pretty much) guarantee the big 8 all safely advance. & even if one of the big countries contive to eff up they're guaranteed 6 games.

In 96 we qualified for the quarters by beating the might of UAE & the Netherlands; this time we can safely lose to India, SA & the Windies & as long as we beat the Irish, the Dutch and the Banglas we'll be right.

Yep, we need 42 group games to eliminate Zim, Canada, Kenya, Bangers, Ireland and Netherlands and estalish that they aren't in the best eight teams.

OK, there may be an upset and WI may dip out to Bangers.

But ****, do we really need 42 matches to estalish the above, and 42 matches wherre no points accrued carry over to tne next stage.

I hate super 6&8. Keep it simple like Fifa WC & Rugby WC. Groups>Quarters>Semis>Finals. I like this format better then past 3 CWCs. The point wen CWC gets boring is during Super 6&8 rounds. The boring pace of Super 8 is wat hit the 2007 CWC not India & Pakistan exit & definitely not the number of nations. This only problem I see with 2011 WC is the 1st round. I would have preferred 16 team Wc Groups (4x4) > Quarters > Semis > Finals. Fast - short & thrilling. Thats wat everyone wants not the boring extension to 2 months.

Didn't the side in 2003 have a better or more inform bowling attack?

This.