It’s anyone’s game at the ICC World Cup, but India would fancy its chances

The ICC World Cup remains the last word on cricket’s hierarchy. There are multiple rankings linked to the game’s formats ranging from five-day Tests to abridged Twenty20s, but when it comes to bragging rights about what constitutes the best squad, it is essential to have won the World Cup. Debates vanish and the champion unit is allowed its swagger. As the quadrennial event returns to England, with Thursday’s opening game pitting the hosts against South Africa at the Oval, it is an opportunity for captains and their teams to reshape their legacies. Interestingly, the inaugural fixture features two under-achievers in cricket’s showpiece event. England and South Africa have often flattered to deceive. The former failed to get past stronger opposition in some summit clashes while the latter repeatedly remained a bundle of nerves and choked at climactic stages. Both now get another shot at correcting these anomalies, and the first step among many more to follow will be made on Thursday. A history of under-performance is not among Australia’s worries as it has five World Cup titles in its kitty. But it needs to wrest back its reputation as a standard-bearer. Last year’s ball-tampering crisis drove a knife into a proud sporting nation’s heart; two of the perpetrators, Steve Smith and David Warner, are back in the squad, keen to recover their lost space and respect. Redemption is not just a yearning, it is a burning need.

India, cricket’s commercial heart, steps in under a captain who is as combative as ever. Virat Kohli was a rookie when M.S. Dhoni’s men triumphed in the 2011 World Cup final at Mumbai; now he leads the squad and remains batsman-supreme. An experienced batting component, a clutch of all-rounders and a fine pace-bowling unit helmed by Jasprit Bumrah are at India’s core, and it would be an upset if this squad doesn’t prevail in the round-robin league and qualify for the semifinals. But this is anyone’s game as Kapil Dev and his men showed at Lord’s in 1983 while stunning the West Indies in a gripping World Cup final. That ‘David quelling Goliath’ tale found many repetitions in subsequent World Cups, and any outfit from among Pakistan, New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh can be the world-beater on its day. There is Afghanistan too as cricket’s latest illustration of its power to be about more than the competition itself. It is thus disappointing that driven by commercial considerations, the ICC chose to limit the 2019 tournament to just 10 teams. In the end, World Cups are won by captains who believe nothing is impossible and lead from the front. India will hope that it will be Kohli when the final concludes on July 14.