Tony Cozier was building up WI chances of winning the WC. Of course forgetting Pakistan is one of the weaker of the big guns. They will have to beat better sides than Pakistan.

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"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction

Good win for the Windies. The controlled performance by the younger players must be encouraging. Dwayne Smith did well with both bat and ball. But if they have to make a real mark, senior guys like Chanderpaul & Sarwan should also be more consistent.

Sarwan annoys me, he'll go on to make at least 20 or 30 and then throw his wicket away getting overexcited. I mean today, he got out on 49 - I hope this riles him and gives him motivation to actually get past 50 in the next few matches.

Quite right Nostromo, if the Windies; and particularly the senior batsmen, find some consistancy, then and only then should they be considered possible winners.

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"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose."
- Ayrton Senna

OK so Pakistan are one of the weaker of the big guns, well let's look at the others recent form.

South Africa (Ranked 1) barely scraped past Ireland in the warm up, no spinners to speak of and the pitches are expected to take spin.

Australia (Ranked 2) No Lee, No Warne, McGrath has good and bad days now, well thumped by both England and New Zealand in the last two series they played.

India - Oh so inconsistent Excellent on paper, sadly we play on grass...

Sri Lanka - Good spinners not so good pace attack batting can either explode or implode

England - Some excellent one day players, but rarely perform to potential

New Zealand - moderate at everything and not specially good at anything

Pakistan - West indies just beat them.

Bangladesh - dark horse, never know could pull a supprise or two.

Zimbabwe - The cricket team is almost as much of a joke as calling Mugabe a democratically elected president.

This tournament is just so open it is strange.

Australia haven't had Warne for ODI's for three or four years now, I don't see how that would factor in during this competition.

An interesting point made earlier on the radio commentary I was listening to, regarding the amount of spin and bounce the pitches are expected to provide. The West Indian commentator (I have no idea who, I didn't catch their name) said something along the lines of: "how can the pitches be expected to have low bounce and plenty of spin when no-one (including the Windies) have actually seen how the pitches play?" And I have a feeling that, while there may not be much in it for the bowlers, we may see a few surprising pitches. So South Africa's lack of a quality spinner may not hinder them, if they're lucky.

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"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose."
- Ayrton Senna

Yeh Warne retired in January 2003 so I think they have recovered from his lose, reminding that they only took half a side to New Zealand, and they won 7 out of 11 games in the Com Bank series where England only won 4 games out of 11 and New Zealand won even less.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

Hmmm - but England won the games that mattered, you can play 100 warm up games, but only the final matters.

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Ern

Yes but to say that Australia was thrashed during the Com bank series is a little extreme considering they won the most matches by a mile in the series

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

Well World Cup matters not Common-something-cup.

I guess we'll know a bit more about teams after the initial matches. We cant say too much at the moment, except well done West Indies. Pakistan had the game to win, and batted poorly.

Let's face it, both teams could meet in the final!

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I have a dream.... (Martin Luther King)