RUN this World Cup through the kind of ‘Super Duper Computer’ that tends to be roused for its predictions around this time in any tournament cycle, and you could bet your last IPL franchise dollar that it would pre-ordain India as champions.
No country has greater resources, be that talent or wealth. No team sits higher in the world rankings, a metric that, for all its flaws, is proven pre-emptive of success. No other group of players will benefit from home conditions, nor such raucous home support.
Yet, of course, no country, no team and no group of players will be under such crippling pressure to perform.
And how it has crippled. Since winning the 2011 edition as co-hosts, India have twice cantered into World Cup semi-finals, only to fall flat when faced with the jeopardy of a knockout contest for the first time. In T20 World Cups, a record of one final in seven editions since their inaugural triumph reads even more feebly. Across both formats, the path from impossible-to-ignore favourites to Irish goodbye is well trodden.
So if — and it is a big if — not them, then who? As defending champions, England look the next closest to a semi-final shoo-in, not quite the side that transformed the game in the run up to 2019, but burnished since then with even more clutch tournament know-how.
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