Going through the motions?

Well, lot of people expected the first few games of this world cup to be just the big teams going through the motions. There will be a total of four big games, one of which was the tournament opener between WI and Pak. WI won that game convincingly and they would have a lot of cheer about from that win, especially after the trashing in the warm up game against India. That they managed to win that game without needing any part-time bowlers is also impressive for WI. And this game also provides further evidence for the fact that this might be a slower bowler's world cup, especially the wicket-to-wicket slow medium pacers.

Australia had a good win against Scotland and they would be happy with their typically clinical performance. They owe Scotland a lot for choosing to bowl first, giving Australia a good batting workout in the middle. Hayden and Ponting would be specially grateful for finding some valuable runs and all batsmen got some time in the middle. The bowlers too did a good job. With rumours that Symonds is ready to join the team for the next game, things are definitely looking up for the Aussies. But the main area of concern still remains the bowling attack and it will not be tested until the game against South Africa.

The semi-finalists from last world cup, Kenya, had a very good outing in their first game against Canada. In fact, I think Kenya actually stands a decent chance of making the super 8's considering they are in the same group of England and New Zealand. Both those teams are vulnerable to losing the occasional game and if Kenya plays well on a particular day, we might have a big upset on our cards. But amongst all minnows, they are the team that have the best chance of making the super 8 in this World Cup. And I am sure they want to prove that the previous World cup semi-final appearance was not a fluke and that they deserve to play in the elite league, ahead of Zimbabwe.