Survival of the fittest

Joel Lyall Delhi

Which country will win the World Cup? It’s going to be a real lottery this time with the top eight teams entertaining hopes of pulling it off. The Aussies are no longer firm favourites, some see the South Africans as the best bet. But the Aussies are not giving up and many still have put their money on them.

West Indies feel they have odds in their favour just because they are playing at home. The gambling instincts of the Indians have India at the top of their charts. Pakistan and Sri Lanka know what it is to win the World Cup just as the Indians and so no one can discount their chances. The New Zealand and England can make a case for themselves, having beaten the Australians more than once in recent weeks.

When the World Cup gets under way, plain logic alone will not be enough to see a side through. The will to win, ambition, and national pride are three pre-requisites a team should have. World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev put it succinctly: "The 1983 squad was fired with ambition; they were determined to do something great for the country. That drove them to achieve the unimaginable."

The limited-overs cricket is a game for all-rounders, but they should command a place in the team on the merit of at least either batting or bowling. It’s a misnomer to call them bits and pieces players. They provide the overall strength to the team. Most teams are endowed with at least a couple of genuine all-rounders. Aussies have Andrew Symonds and Shane Watson, New Zealanders have Scot Styris and Jacob Oram, South Africans have Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis, England has Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood, Pakistan has Abdul Razzaq and Shahid Afridi. But what about India? There are no confirmed all-rounders. India is looking at Sachin Tendulkar, Irfan Pathan and Virender Sehwag to do the job, but only Pathan seems to fill the slot.

Then, in most teams, the wicketkeepers are considered all-rounders. The team would have done well with players like Madan Lal, Roger Binny, Mohinder Amarnath, not to speak of Kapil.

In a war-like World Cup atmosphere, the players require tremendous mental as well as physical fitness to last the distance. They will have to be in a position to play in pressure situations. Also, they can’t betray their body language. These are the simple facts of life that are noticed on the field, more so while fielding and bowling. A great fielding side will always have that X-Factor to carry them out of tighter moments. In one-day cricket, most matches are lost in the field when pressure tells on the players and cripples them. Simply put, it is the survival of the fittest.