World Cup Fever……

The madness kicks off today in the Caribbean as the cricket world licks their lips at the most wide-open race in world cup history. The two favourites (Australia and South Africa) don’t have even an average spinner in their lineups, with South Africa relying on an all-out pace attack and Australia crossing its fingers hoping their superstar Symonds can recover from injury in time to save their campaign.

With the Caribbean pitches tipped to spin a lot, there is a outside chance Australia and South Africa will be making up the numbers if Murali, Kumble, Vettori and Kaneria have great tournaments.

South Africa generally go far and choke under the pressure in the semi’s, and the SA joke capitan Smith is making really lame jokes about his team’s record of choking. This one was the best from Smith: “It’s ridiculous to say we are chokers, unless we are eating spare ribs.” If this is what he comes up when he has time to think up a line, imagine how lame his sledges on the field would be - no wonder Australia smash them everytime it matters - even Vos can do better than that…

Australian captain Ponting is talking up his team’s chances and clearly loving the favouritism tag, but with his best player Symonds out injured, form batsman Hayden recovering from a broken foot, no spinners worth taking on the trip (I don’t know what Hogg does but he can’t spin the ball), and every single fast bowler in his lineup in a form slump, I’m not sure the favouritism is well-placed.

Pakistan are annoying as ever, hating the world and wanting the world to hate them. Despite their fat capitan speaking fluent English, he has decided to conduct all his tournament interviews in his native tongue, tilting the hundreds of English-speaking journalists, who have to listen through an interpreter, not that he ever says anything interesting anyway.

West Indies have talent but no discipline. Rumour has it the team was out late the night before they got belted by 9 wickets in a practice match. An amusing angle to this story is Lara’s stuttering defence/denial of this rumour - claiming he didn’t know about it but if it happened, he would think he would have heard about it. Or some pathetic jibberish like that. West Indies has the talent and team to be the first country to win the world cup on home soil, but they won’t. They are unprofessional jokers.

Sri Lanka don’t have the power hitters they had in 96 (remember Jayasuria and Kaluwitharana - those two little nutters changed one-day cricket for ever), but Murali is a sicko and will carry the team to the semi’s at least.

There hasn’t been much talk about India, and I think they could be the dark horse.

I’m putting my money on Sri Lanka and India. I think their chances are under-rated. I’ve put 700 today on Pakistan at 2.28 to beat the West Indies, as I think the West Indies are going to have a horror tournament. And Pakistan are full of hate, which can be a useful emotion in sport - I think they’ll get up today over some hungover West Indian players….

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Cricket fans in India and Pakistan are some of the most fanatic in the world. I read in a news article once that every time India loses a big game, the suicide rate spikes up that night. One fan has gotten global media coverage because he is attempting to sell his kidney to attend the World Cup and threatening to kill himself if he can’t find a buyer:
Indian fan looking for kidney buyer

Tarun Sharma, 23, said he would set himself on fire later this week if no one came forward to help him sell the organ.

“I will kill myself if I am denied a chance to watch the Indians play in the West Indies,” Sharma said.

“Anybody can survive with one kidney but you will never get the opportunity to watch India win the Cup in the West Indies.”

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