INDIAN TEAM

Indian squad for the 2011 World cup is

The 15-member team is:

• MS Dhoni (C)
• Sachin Tendulkar
• Virender Sehwag
• Gautam Gambhir
• Yuvraj Singh
• Suresh Raina
• Virat Kohli
• Yusuf Pathan (all-rounder)
• Zaheer Khan
• Ashish Nehra
• Munaf Patel
• Praveen Kumar
• Harbhajan Singh
• R. Ashwin
• Piyush Chawla

They might play with 5 batsman, 1 WK, 1 BIG hitter and 4 bowlers.

The batsman in the team will be as follows

· Sachin

· Sehwag

· Gambhir

· Kohli

· Raina

To be honest this must be top five. YUVRAJ doesn’t deserve to be in top 5. He can fight his place with Yusuf. The next two Batsman may be

· MSD

· Pathan/Yuvraj

Yuvraj can’t fight with neither of Kohli and raina. As they are the best in asian pitches. So he can have a place fight with Yusuf. Its time to earn a place in INDIAN team rather than getting a place in name of credits

The Bowlers may be picked as below

· Harbhajan

· Zaheer

· Praveen Kumar

· Nehra

As there is a batting power play, any team won’t go with more spinners , unless the pitch looks terrible slow which is unlikely to happen in this world cup. Also playing Munaf in eleven will cost INDIA the match. If Harbhajan fails or picks injury then India will play with ASHWIN. I want to see Ashwin playing in any one match , as he deserve to be in WC.

India is sure favorites to reach last four. That will be cake-walk. But from then on winning two matches to take cup will be difficult

First World Cup of the decade

To my Knowledge, I can now remember 4 Cricket WC’s (1996, 99, 03, 07), as I started to see cricket from those days. Of those 1996 World cup produced the best one. How many could forget the semi-finals of the 1996 WC between Australia and West Indies. In the last 5 Wc’s , an Asian team has managed to enter to the finals. As far as records are concerned 92 World Cup has been most un-predictive world cup as Pakistan clinched from no-where. Thanks to Wasim bhai and Imran Khan for their performances in the finals.

As far as 2011 world-cup is concerned, it may not be as difficult for non-Asian countries to dominate unlike previous venture. After IPL’s , playing in Indian sub-continent pitches has become easy for non- Asian teams. So this may be no favorites filled World cup . Also the present form of the OZ suggests that their chances are little less compared to their previous attempts.

To be honest , this is going out to be batsman friendly WC. Some of the things that has to be worked out are

· There is a mandatory ball change in 35^th over , which will make reverse swing out of equation

· *The flattest INDIAN wickets ever

· *Lack of quality Fast bowlers

· *3^rd BATTING PP

As there are some matches even in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, its going out to be a fun filled WC . Every team irrespective of form has selected 2 or more spinners. For instance South Africa has selected Imran Tahir , in their squad who has an incredible domestic record , but is uncapped player .

There can be most number of 300 + scores in this World cup. As time nearing ,we can expect a run rain soon J