India's ODI performances heading into this World Cup and the performances of Indian players in the IPL make us one of the obvious favourites.
After a dramatic few months where speculations were rife about who would make it into the final WC XV, our final squad was announced with some surprise additions and omissions - the most notable of those- the absence of Rishabh Pant.
His addition as a reserve player undoes some of that damage and is a positive for the team, especially with news about Vijay Shankar's iinjury posing some problems.
That said, we cannot discount the threat Australia and England pose to India's title chances.
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England certainly come off as favourites, not just because of the home advantage but also because of their bench strength. It also takes knowing these conditions to be able to play them right.
This World Cup is particularly going to be fun because of the potential of the games to be high-scoring. Pitches are there that assist batsmen, and looking at the IPL form of some of these players, I won't dismiss the idea of several 400+ runs games.
While this may look like a batsman's World Cup, it also gives the bowler that much bigger a stage to prove themselves.
All eyes with be on Jasprit Bumrah and his pace attack while Virat is bound to hog all the attention reserved for the batsmen.
I am going to be looking out for all-rounders, particularly the likes of Hardik Pandya (India), Ben Stokes (England), Kedar Jadhav (India), Ravindra Jadeja (India) and Andre Russell (West Indies). These men have the ability to single-handedly change the match around.
Sahil is an MBA student at DG Vaishnav College, Chennai.
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