Sneak preview: West Indies

Hosts winning cricket world cup is relatively rare with Sri Lanka, the only team winning the edition hosted jointly in the sub continent. So, can West Indies defy the odds and win this world cup? My guess is No. And the reasons are similar to those raised by a number of people, lack of bowling resources. That said, this team has made the finals of two most recent champion's trophy winning one of them and have shown that matches can be won with just three specialist bowlers and bits-and-pieces bowlers. So, no one would rule them out totally yet.

On the batting front, West Indies are pretty strong. With the return of Sarwan, the line up of Gayle, Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Lara and Samuels looks good on paper. But the backup cast of Simmons and Devon Smith is no where in the same league and could be their weak point. Then they have all rounders in the form of Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith and Kieron Pollard. Only Bravo has been able to achieve some amount of consistency among these players with Pollard one of the very few debutants among the fancied nations in this world cup. Ramdin has struggled with the bat and thats another point against the West Indies.

That leaves Taylor, Collymore, BRadshaw and Powell to complete the bowling attack. There is clearly no matchwinner in this list. Collymore and Bradshaw can keep it tight and Taylor is their main wicket taker. Bravo bowls a good mix of yorkers and slower balls at the death but I am sure by now, teams would have worked him out by now as Dhoni showed in the tournament in India.

West Indies' strategy will clearly be to win the toss, send the opposition in and try their best to restrict them with front-line bowlers as well as spinners in the form of Gayle and Samuels bowing a tight fullish length, and then chase down any target set by the opposition.

However, their bench strength is very thin and unconvincing and hence it is difficult to see them winning consistently to make the semi-finals in this world cup. They will have their few great upsets during the course of the tournament (I pick them to defeat either Australia or South Africa), but despite having the advantage of home conditions, they will be eliminated in the super 8's.