The Australians begin their campaign to defend the World Cup with a game in Ahmedabad. They have had a hat-trick of wins already and after the disappointment of not being able to recapture the Ashes will be looking to make up for that by winning the World Cup for the fourth consecutive time.
If they do that, then Ricky Ponting will have had a rare feat of being the captain to win it three consecutive times, a feat which even Clive Lloyd was unable to achieve with his wonderful team of the 1980s.
Lloyd of course was thwarted by Kapil Dev's India in 1983 and if history repeats itself, then Ponting also could be left wondering what happened to his team in the finals.
This time however the awe factor is not there and the Australians are among the other teams like India, South Africa, Sri Lanka as the favourites to win this edition of the ICC World Cup.
Though the Kiwis have struggled a fair bit in the one-dayers this season, they will take heart from the fact that players do tend to lift their game for the World Cup and if that happens then they could surprise Australia.
Even if the players on the ground forgot about it, what were the support staff, whose main responsibility is to be aware of such situations, doing? To a team finding it hard to win a game, it was a slip-up that they really cannot afford as the tournament progresses.
Australia will look to win their opening game in a dominant manner to send the message to the other teams that they should not be taken lightly. Like India got more than 350 runs in their opening game against Bangladesh so also Australia will look to get as many as possible.
They have had some trouble with their openers and will want Shane Watson to lead the way with Ponting and Clarke also getting runs. Once these three start firing, then the Australians will be a formidable outfit and if their pace duo of Brett Lee and Shaun Tait clock up the 150 kph mark then the opposition will find it tough to utilize the field restrictions and score in the slog overs.
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