Aussies favourites, India dark horses

Bangladesh will put up a valiant fight but will lose most battles gallantly. But lose they will.

Zimbabwe will win the Popular Whipping Boys Award who will bolster confidence of teams swimming through troubled waters. They will have their uses. Life-jackets do.

Analysis

Pakistan

Like the West Indies, Pakistan cricket does not cease to oscillate between the ridiculous and the extraordinary. On their day they can pummel any side into submission but thereafter precipitate into complete ruin – a disorder that has its roots in an unhappy dressing room.

Support staff remains a concern; it is common knowledge that coach Bob Woolmer and Shoaib Akhtar do not sing from the same hymn sheet.

Lack of penetration in the first-change pace attack has dogged Inzamam-ul-Haq. Mohammad Asif is yet to perfect the art of bowling at the death. Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Rao Iftikhar Anjum look like they don’t belong. Doubts continue to linger over the availability of both Akhtar and Asif; the doping controversy is dragging its feet for too long.

Danish Kaneria, a potential match-winner, just about sneaked into the squad. We wonder whether he really enjoys the captain’s confidence.

An unsettled opening pair adds to the dilemma. It must be said, though, that Pakistan’s opening woes are more than offset by an enviable middle-order and exceptional strikers lower down. And, of course, no team can discount Shahid Afridi’s six-hitting derby.

Fielding has never been Pakistan’s USP. Their recent series against the Proteas has been far from inspiring.