It certainly isn't. World cup history shows that either the favourites win or the winning team play some very good cricket. All this rubbish that unlike Test cricket the one dayers don't prove that much.
World cup 1979 West Indies win- favourites.
WC 1983 WI favourites reach the final.
Australia 1999 and 2003 favourites win the tournament.
All the other winners although not starting out as favourites went on to play great cricket.
India 1983 was my favourite shocked everyone with some great tactical cricket and really played as a team. With of course the genius of Kapil Dev. If I remember rightly the great Gavaskar did very little it was the unsung who played out of their skins.

__________________
"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction

While the World Cup is normally the only one day competition i actually enjoy and get into i couldn't care less this time.That is probably down to the fact that my team are a shambles and will be lucky to get out of the group stage.

As for winners this time,you can't see past Australia to be honest.

I think the world cup is a lottery to a certain extent. While in tests, if you have a bad session, you can often still go on to win the test. You do not get second chances in world cup finals though.

Every team has some special match winners. How could you write off the W.I's when they have the likes of Gayle and Lara. Or England with Flintoff and Pieterson. I could go on and nominate 2 or 3 match winners(some teams have 5 or 6 granted) in all the top eight teams.

ODI's can often be decided by the toss, rain, or one or two poor umpiring decisions. While some nations have a greater amount of match winning players, it still comes down to who fires on the day. After watching Bangledesh beat Australia in 2005, nothing surprises me in ODI's anymore

__________________

Australia have many more than 2 or 3 though, and their reserves/second eleven players are much stronger than the other teams. Difficult to look beyond Australia as the winners - it will take some moments of individual brilliance/genius, by someone like Lara/ Sehwag/ Afridi/ Asif/ Murali etc to derail the Aussies.

__________________
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

Yes, the world cup is a lottery, we dont know who is going to finish runners up.

To be honest even if the Aussies have a really bad game and someone else plays out of their skin you would still back the aussies to win.

__________________
Mark.