Mr Cricket Writes Off Three

Poor old Mike "Mr Cricket" Hussey hasn't been right about a great deal in the last fortnight. And here he is tossing out India, West Indies and England from the World cup before the tourney has begun. Fair play. Wickman's been busy ridiculing all the facile goons who can't face actually giving an opinion beyond "Look mate, I'm hardly going to say my own team haven't got a hope, and I don't want to give anyone any ammo so I'm going to say it will be the top eight seeds in the Super Eight and then anyone can win it".

But that's all tosh isn't it? The Super Eights are no lottery. Everyone plays against everyone else bar the team they were in a group with. If you won that game you'll have a two point head start on the four teams that didn't. And that's it. To win the World Cup you'll have to play 11 games. You will probably need to win two group games to get to the Super Eight. It would be useful to win four of the six games you play in the Super Eights. And then two more games to win the final. So you probably need to win 8 out of 11 games. But they need to be the right 8.

Wickman wonders why Hussey has kissed off the WI and India? Frankly any English (or Welsh) man or woman with more than one eye can see that we might have nicked a couple of games at the end of the CB but we've been at best mercurial during the last few years. Hell's teeth, big Steve Harmison and Tresco have virtually both had nervous breakdowns in the last year and Wickman bets old Dunky Fletcher isn't getting much shut eye right now. But writing off India and West Indies? On what basis? The Kiwis have been a shambles for ages. Crikey they didn't get to the CB finals! They then outslogged Aus in their own back yard. Sorry -Wickman rates England winning the finals a better performance than that given the team Australia sent across the Tasman (which now Wickman comes to think of it is probably turning into their World Cup team). Which might have played them into a bit of form but they are as capable as England of chucking it down the sink at a moment's notice. And Pakistan's a funny choice, no? Consistency is hardly their watchword...

So no, Mr C, Wickman says think again. Just because Stevie F and the boys roughed you up a bit doesn't mean they're class. And the Pakistanis look weak with the ball in hand. Wickman is nailing his colours to the mast and predicting semis between Aus, the Jaapies, India and WI. If Wickman gets it right, he becomes the new Mr Cricket. If Mr Cricket gets it right he continues to be Australia's stand in captain with the 100 per cent losing record...