Adil Najam
The 2007 Cricket World Cup does not officially begin until Sunday (March 11) when the opening ceremony will be held. And the first match - between Pakistan and hosts West Indies - does not happen till Tuesday, March 13.
However, in many real ways, the World Cup will begin for Pakistan today (Friday, March 9) when Pakistan meets South Africa - who many consider to be the favorites along with Australia - in a warm-up game. Neither side is likely to - or should - take the game lightly; certainly not Pakistan which is so beset with so many problems.
It would be interesting to find out who our readers think is most likely to win the 2007 World Cup. But given that this is ‘All Things Pakistan‘ we are most interested in your views on how Pakistan will do.
Cast your vote. Ask your friends to do so too. And then jump into the comments section to shout out how you think the Pakistan team will fare. Our only request is that when you vote, try to vote analytically rather than emotionally. Remember, the question is not what you WANT, but what you think is MOST LIKELY.
THIS POLL IS NOW CLOSED. See results of Poll Here.
Has anyone heard the latest quote from Boby Woolmer. He say’s ‘South Africa are his personal favourites’.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that is not the thing to be saying when you are in competition. It doesn’t exactly instill confidence in your camp, when your head team manager has a favourite team other this his own. I think when your getting paid millions of dollars as a manager of a team, you should a little more mindfull of what you say in public.
I just found that to be a little strange. It seems like we have already lost even without playing a single match.
Daktar, you have a very good point. It can work both ways - if Pakistan perform below expectations, people will be in a bad mood and quite possibly take it out on the government.
For an example of what can happen after a sporting defeat, it is generally believed that the Conservative Party narrowly won the 1970 UK General Election only because the highly fancied England football team (and previous winners) had lost to Germany in the World Cup quarter finals just a couple of days before. Harold Wilson’s Labour government took the fall.
Could any of the people who have voted that Pakistan will become champion please explain to me why they think Pakistan will win?
There are very few things that will distract a good Pakistani from cricket. It seems this Chief Justice drama has. Now, the question is whether we will forget about the Chief Justice when in a coupel of days teh World Cup actually begins. I am betting we will. Maybe the World Cup will save the general!
Maybe we should have a poll on this!
[...] We hope that you have already voted in our opinion poll on Cricket World Cup here. Following is the second in series of our World Cup specials. [...]
Always hoping for the best all I can say is Inshallah may Pakistan win the world cup.
Some good news finally.
Pakistan beat South Africa quite convincingly today. If that is any indication of things maybe there are a few surprises in store at the world cup. Anyone wants to change their votes?
One thing that may give us a slightly better chance is that no team has a very strong bowling attack in this tournament, even Australia and South Africa have serious weaknesses in this department. So on a good day, if our batting really fires, who knows. But overall, with the present state of our bowling (Rana and Sami being pathetic), our attack is even weaker than other teams, and therefore, if they make it to the semi-finals, that in itself will be quite an achievement.