MUMBAI, 24 February 2007 — A spate of injuries to key players and sudden loss of form, or staleness due to surfeit of cricket, all seem to conspire to equate the balance between teams in contention for top honors in the ICC World Cup 2007, with the showdown just days away.
As it is, there is no team that is not without its problem. Perhaps, Australia and Pakistan have more than their own share of woes. Let us take the plight of the favorites. The losing of five matches on the trot, in just a fortnight, has come on top of injuries to at least five of their leading players. The latest to join the list is Mathew Hayden with as fractured right big toe sustained in a match where New Zealand completed a white-wash of the world champions in the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series.
Pakistan too are groping in the dark, first with injuries and then coping with the shadow over the clearance of two of their fast bowlers, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif from their earlier drug abuse charges.
England seem to have recovered after their disastrous Ashes series and are looking a much better side for the shorter version of the game.
Against this background, the team that was not quite in the picture as a force to reckon with, just a month and a half ago, has now emerged as one of the front-runners for the title. That team is India. Just two home series enabled India gradually leave the pitiful past behind and how!
The pieces have all fallen in place in India’s jigsaw puzzle, except one of Irfan Pathan, who is still struggling with poor form. It appears that he did not do much during the period that he was sent home from South Africa.
He did not even meet his first coach, who had taken him under his wings and turned him into a classy all-rounder. Now, at this late hour, he has to prove himself all over playing in the last series of domestic cricket.
New Zealand and West Indies have overcome their minor injury problems and raring to go. But it is South Africa, basking in their new rating on top of the heap, who are looking the most confident.
