Will the upcoming cricket world cup be the first one in recent times where Australia will enter as their weakest team ever?

Thanks to England, Pakistan is no more holding the degrading record of most runs scored in an ODI inning against a team. Australia’s ODI cricket team is in shambles and their poor performance justifies their slumped to 6th position in ICC ODI rankings. It was the same ground where England smashed 444/3 against Pakistan and now they have surpassed it comfortably by scoring 481/6. At one point in time, they were all set to reach the almost unbelievable landmark of 500 runs.

There is no doubt that Australia is suffering without their key players but the fact is they also lost to England in Australia 6 months ago and that too by a convincing margin of 4-1. So we can safely say that Australian one-day side has been in decline for a while and the results are showing that. But whether England can continue this dominance in the coming world cup remains to be seen. Whereas for Australia their problems are considerably big- they are lacking firepower in both batting and bowling.

England’s track record in world cups has not been satisfactory, to say the least. They couldn’t even go past the group stage in the previous world cup. However, this is a much-changed England side. This improved English side has batsmen that score runs quickly and plays with an aggressive mindset unlike in 2015 Cricket world cup.

But as we saw in the Champions trophy England were humbled by Pakistan in the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy when they were actually the favorites to win the title. In that game, the slow pitch went against England and they suffered against a potent bowling attack of Pakistan. So that’s one of the reasons I will still not consider England as the red-hot favorites for the coveted world cup title as they are a bit one-dimensional. But for Australia, they need to pull up their socks quickly if they want to do well in the world cup.

In my opinion

There are no clear favorites other than India and if there is one team who can beat them, it is Pakistan. There’s a reason to that- India’s batting is undoubtedly the strongest among all nations and their bowling is good enough with their leading swing bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Pakistan has wicket-taking bowlers which on their day can rattle them and challenge them the most. All in all, it will be an exciting cricket world cup.