The Game of Love and Unity!!

Play, in this beautiful game
Where the rules and aim
Remain the same
It's the game of love unity

Oh yeah the world cup is in the air & the cricket's biggest tournament is all set for an exciting start!!The ICC Cricket World cup's theme song is called as the "The Game of love and unity" the above lines are the starting lines of the lyrics and it will be performed by international reggae artist Shaggy, who was born in Jamaica , Barbadian entertainer Rupee and Trinidadian Faye-Ann Lyons at the Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium in Jamaica ,the venue of the opening ceremony.



The Caribbean has always been an exciting place for cricket this world cup will be no different and since its the first world cup in the carribean the excitement will be very huge!! any one know the mascot of this worldcup?? this year mascot's called as the mello you can see it in the picture above!!

i will try to make this review very short as i want to write some smaller posts for a change so here goes my analysis for the top 8 teams which will play in the super 8 eliminating the minnow teams which i dont think will provide much serious threat to the bigger teams this time!!

NewZealand:
The kiwis what shall i say about them?? they are always unpredictable team displaying remarkable talent in one match and in next match they lose disastrously and for the third time in the worldcup in succession they will be lead by stephen fleming who is one of the strategic captains till date in ODI cricket,presently depending on their performance in the CB series and series against srilanka we have seen that they are a capable team but if they were to qualify for the semifinal they need to strain so hard!! hope they successfully defend chappel hadlee trophy against the aussies who are desperate for a win!!Their team spirit is a big factor lets see how far it takes them in the world cup and astle & cairns will be missed badly in this world cup..

Key Players:
Jacob oram,Stephen Fleming,Brendon Mccullum,Shane Bond you can find the Squad here

Pakistan:
Their 2003 WC squad was much better than this one i feel, This will be the last world cup for the likes of inzy,yousuf and akhtar and so they would want to end this on a high note though they bounced back to level the series against saf @ one point during the recent series but they were decimated in the remaining matches which shows the absence of a match winner in pakistan, fitness of the pace battery is still a big concern for the pakistan with the case of asif & akhtar and kaneria's inclusion has raised eyebrows!! can he make the cut i want him to bowl to lara once more!!Inzy has a task at hand this worldcup like nzl they are unlikely to make the semis with the present form.

Key Players:
Mohammed Yousuf,Inzy,Akhtar(provided he is fit & cleared of all doping charges) and you can find the Squad here

Srilanka:
After the drubbing they got in india last year srilanka have done well to recover after convincing home series wins against south africa which broke many world records and away win in newzealand inspired mainly by the butcher from matara!! srilanka can rocket to semifinal contention if they keep the same momentum in the worldcup the slow pitches will assist them very much to their needs and it will be the last of the world cups for murali and jsuriya,the major burden lies on jayasuriya's shoulders!!

Key Players:
Sanath jayasuriya,Muttiah muralitharan,Chaminda vaas and you can find the Squad here

South Africa:
They are now chasing the australian ICC ratings with their consistent ODI performance ,the manner in which they chased the mammoth total against australia at wanderers last year will show the stuff they got and they also showed good form in the champions trophy too and thrashed india and pakistan recently to go to the worldcup with heads held high..like the kiwis they have the team bonding and the fielding which can change the course of any match!!

Key players:
Shaun pollock(Man he is on a roll),Jacques kallis(the last wc for both these great players),Mark boucher(am sure he will have his moments this wc)

England:
Who would have thought the recent england will defeat the aussies three times on a trot?? they were written off the records two weeks back but they have bounced back to semifinal contention with some stunning display in the finals of CB series, its worth noting that aussies have not been defeated in that final for the past 14 years!! Vaughan returns to the helm which naturally will reduce the pressure on freddie and return of kevin will boost the team's morale but i would have preferred the dream team which won the ashes in 2005 to play this worldcup but injury concerns wont let that at al.. :(.. Trescothick will be sourly missed out..Watch out for england folks i wont be surprised if they take the trophy!!

Key players:
Paul collingwood(this guy is on a dream run),Freddie Flintoff,Kevin pietersen and you can find the Squad here

WestIndies
Interesting record that westindies had last year of the 10 ODIs played in West indies last year they had won 9 of them and lost just one so that puts out their strength at home,they had the highest winning percentage at home even higher than aussies and being the hosts am sure they will progress to the semifinal very easily,this will mark the end of brian lara's ODI career as well and they had very good cricket last year reaching the finals of the champions trophy once again though the team selection has been marred by the match fixing scandals i dont think it will affect the team's morale in any way,they will be the host to beat!! i predict an Aus-WI semifinal where in hope aussies will be knocked out by the hosts,but one thing we can be sure anything can happen in cricket

Key Players
Brian Lara(since its his last wc he will have a blast),Chris Gayle(he has a big role to play this world cup),they are yet to announce their squad.

India
Oh yeah India!! This year its gonna be led by Dravid who has his first wc as skipper (i wanted DADA to be the lead :() but the team will have to ride on the experienced shoulders of DADA & Sachin which will be their last world cups i guess..sachin though has some inconsistency Ganguly is spoton he is back to his prime best and got his hunger for runs he should have had 3 centuries by now and yesterday Dravid also crossed 10000 runs between these 3 players we have 36000+ runs,if one of them scores big in any of the matches we will have more than a good chance in wc.. but the bowling factor worries me a lot with exception of zaheer all others look mediocre, bowlers need extra work out before WC..With a bit of luck and some good bowling performance india has a good chance to win the world cup..

Key Players
Saurav ganguly(Wat a form he is in!!),Sachin

Australia
They may have lost the momentum heading to the world cup am sure they will get it back in the chappell hadlee series against NZL, they will be the team to beat in the world cup if they were to beaten in the world cup like i have said before it has to be in the semifinal,if by chance they go to the finals it will take a miracle for the opponent team to beat them they had a brilliant record last year and they ended the year as the champions of the Champions trophy,their key player will be hussey who is on a rollicking form and will replace bevan's place in this squad but their bowling is not deadly as it was before but am sure glenn mcgrath would want to exploit something in his last world cup.

Key players
Michael Hussey,Symonds(hope he gets fit soon),Gilly and punter and you can find the Squad here

I would like Westindies,India or england to win the world cup but i wont be disappointed even if the aussies retain it!! The interesting part of the tournament will be the Super 8 segment where in all the 8 teams mentioned above will contest to get to semis, i predict India Vs England/Srilanka semifinal and Australia Vs windies in other and i expect four of the five from Aus,Saf,Eng,Ind,Sl in semis, but my football WC predictions back fired to an extent, i dont want the cricket world cup to go that way as well!! I am very much looking forward to the world cup- The game of Love and Unity

I have added the official song also,hope you like it dont miss the opening ceremony for anything folks!!



Courtesy:Youtube

I tried to make it short oops... untill next time..