It promises to be a crackers contest as the teams will be lining up in South Africa to lay hands on the ICC Champions Trophy 2009 in South Africa as Australia which waited with bated breath for eight years to win the Champions Trophy in 2006 and are not expected to relax their grip when the 2009 tournament begins in South Africa next week.
The famous ‘Aussie grit’ will be on view again when they begin the defence of their title even without some of their key players who figured prominently in their the Champions Trophy win in 2006. Aussies will be without Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Damien Martyn and Andrew Symonds, but skipper Ricky Ponting appears quite confident. ”We’ve got great depth in Australian cricket and I think this is one of the things that has held us ahead of the game for the last seven or eight years,” Ponting told reporters before the start of the fifth ODI against England on Tuesday.
“We expect the young guys who come into the side to make an impact as well as those who have been in the side for some time,” he said. Australia are in Group A with unpredictable Pakistan, in-form India and the depleted West Indies. Easy matches are not expected in Group B, with South Africa, Sri Lanka, England and New Zealand all capable of raising their game.
The top two sides from each group advance to the semi-finals, with the final on October 5. Home team South Africa will look to break the jinx of not winning a major title at home. Australia are expected to cruise past the West Indies, who are without their first-choice team following a bitter contract row and the 2004 champions are not expected to perform that well in this edition. But then cricket has always been a funny game.
Defending champions Australia need to beat either India or Pakistan to make their chances of reaching the last four stage. A mouth-watering contest will await the cricket fans when India and Pakistan clash for the first time in more than a year. “No rivalry can match the India-Pakistan rivalry and I think the September 26 match will be something billions of people all over the world will be waiting for,” said Pakistani paceman Umar Gul to a news agency.
India are on a roll with five successive bilateral series wins under captain MS Dhoni and coach Gary Kirsten boosted further by Monday’s success over Sri Lanka.
England’s ODI performance left a lot to be desired and have been brought back to ground realities in the ongoing ODI series by the Australians.
New Zealand can never be underestimated as they have match-winners in skipper Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder. The return of paceman Shane Bond has also strengthened their attack.
Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara leads an exciting band of cricketers - Sanath Jayasuriya, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardene - but expects his team to be more consistent.
{ 0 comments… add one now }