West Indies v South Africa – Dwyane Bravo confident about ICC 2011 World Cup
West Indian all-rounder Dwayne Bravo thinks that his team has a good chance of making it to the quarter-finals of the ICC World Cup 2011 underway in the Subcontinent.
The two time champions have been placed in Group B, and according to Bravo, should emerge out of the pool without many problems, the top four teams from each of the two pools would sail through to the knock out stage.
The http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 and England.
They have had some poor results in recent months, which have pushed them even lower than http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747, who have enjoyed a real blip in form especially in the One Day International (ODI) format.
As such the task might not be as straightforward as Bravo has made it to be. The West Indians would have to bring their A game to the fore if they are to topple at least one of the top four teams in their group, which is a must for
them to make it to the knock out stage.
Bravo, who is regarded as the leading all-rounder in the Caribbean outfit thinks that the players, who can perform with both bat and ball, would make the difference in the tournament. He stated that his team has an abundance of riches
in that department which is going to hold them in good stead.
“All-rounders are very important in this part of the world and we have four top-quality all-rounders. The captain Darren Sammy is one, Kieron Pollard, myself and Chris Gayle. On any given day if two of us out of the four have a good
day, the West Indies will be in a good position to win games".
He feels that the wickets in the Subcontinent would give his team a slight advantage as they are similar to the ones that the West Indians encounter on their islands.
This he thinks would be a big advantage especially against some of the teams, who play on hard bouncy surfaces.
"Once we play properly and execute our plans properly, that obviously is going to come into play... knowing India, spin and slow-medium play a big part and we will also take that into consideration”, Bravo stated.
Despite the recent slump, Bravo thinks that his team is a title contender he was bullish about the chances stating that the recent form and rankings are only “history”.
The West Indians start their campaign with a game against the South Africans. The Caribbean Kings have a good record against the Proteas in World Cup matches.
They beat them in 1992, 1996 and the opener in 2003. In the 1996 edition Brian Lara knocked out the favourites with a vintage hundred in the quarter-final clash at Karachi’s National stadium.
He repeated the dose in a match at Cape Town in 2003, leading his team to an exciting win.
As such the Proteas would be the ones fearing a backlash when the two teams square-up in what is being billed as the first meaningful encounter in a tournament marked by lopsided wins for the major teams against the minnows.
It remains to be seen if Bravo can translate his confidence in his game, one thing is for sure though he is pivotal to his team’s chances and needs to fire on all cylinders in the tournament.
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