The Quarters Game

As the cricket world cup nears the business end of the tournament, the Quarter Final line up have been all but decided.India have a game tomorrow against West Indies.Winner of that match will play Australia in the Quarters and the loser plays Sri Lanka.

For the sake of argument lets assume that India wins against West Indies tomorrow.

At first, most Indians would feel hard done by the fact that we face Australia in the quarters.This mentality has been gradually imbibed in the mind of Indians due to the dominance factor of Australia over the past decade.The reality now is much different. Australia is not the team they used to be 5 years ago and neither is India.If anything,I think India would fancy their chances against Australia than Sri Lanka.

The reason being India and Sri Lanka have played against each other so much in the recent past that both teams know each other Inside out. Sri Lanka are only too familiar with the sub continental conditions and most of their players specialize bowling and batting in these conditions.Like India, the pitch and the conditions is Sri Lanka's 12th man. It's just a matter of who exploits who's weaknesses more and that for India, is too risky a proposition to have, especially in the Quarters.

Australia on the other hand is a completely different prospect.Up until now Australia have just played 'average' to 'good' cricket. This got them through the minnows. Their victory against New Zealand was more because of a below-par performance by the black caps than anything else. Their game against Sri Lanka was washed-off and today they were comprehensively beaten by Pakistan.

Australia's problems in batting department galore. Apart from Shane Watson who has stood like a rock and Micheal Clarke , none of their batsmen have hit top gear. Ricky Ponting's poor form continues. Cameron White has scored a whopping 60 runs in his last 5 innings!. Brad Haddin,though he has got some runs, he has never looked convincing in the middle. Steven Smith hasn't contributed much and Micheal Hussey has returned from an injury and is yet to get some runs under his belt.

Their bowling isn't as strong as it looks either.Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait bowl well only in patches. Johnson especially has been wayward in his line and length and can easily have an off day. Indians do like the ball coming on to the bat at a decent pace and if its not in the right areas, they can tear into the opposition. The game against South Africa stands as a testament to that. Jason Krejza got a nice rhythm going against Pakistan but spinners greater than him have failed to make a mark against India in their own backyard.

Brett Lee however is the only real threat to India. He was a stand out performer in today's game against Pakistan grabbing 4 wickets for 28 in his 8 overs. He managed to get that extra bounce form a two-paced pitch and will definitely pepper the Indian batsmen with a lot of short balls. If India can see him off there is very little reason for us to wish to see Sri Lanka in the Quarters.