The 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup is well underway and competition is fierce. This year, India is hosting the 13th edition of the competition, but who will take home that coveted trophy? Who are the favorites and who will emerge as the dark horses? Check out the predictions and results so far below.
Who is the favorite to win?
With $4 million up for grabs for the winner, you can bet that each of the 10 teams playing this year will be bringing their A-game to snag that prize. However, given that they have a home advantage and that they’re ranked as the No. 1 cricket team in the world, India has an incredibly strong chance of winning. Many bookmakers featured on a list of Indian betting apps rank their home team as 6/5 favorites for the title, but New Zealand, England, and South Africa are not far behind and all at around 11/2 with the bookies.
Past World Cup results show us that playing at home provides a massive advantage. In 2019, England won as the hosts, the previous year was hosted by Australia who went on to win, and in 2011 India themselves hosted and won. On top of that, India is a strong team with pretty much all of their bases covered – it won’t be easy to beat them.
How will the reigning champions do?
As the defending champions, England are there to win. They’re currently double cricket champions – winning the 2019 World Cup and the T20 World Cup in 2022, so they’ll likely make it to the final. They’ve got incredible batting depth, however, injuries could be their downfall. They might need to rotate their attack if they’re going to keep their top bowlers fit and injury-free.
With the high level of quality they’ve got on their team, they’re a very real threat. But, can they play the right combinations? Will they choose the right attacks for the conditions and will Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan work together well? They’ve built up well towards this tournament making it easy to see them getting through to the final stage. With that said, the competition is made up of some strong teams that could be a threat to them.
Dark horses
If there’s one team to keep an eye on, it’s South Africa. They’ve been attempting to go unnoticed but their victory over Australia at 3-2 in a recent series has drawn attention to them. They have a great batting lineup and although their bowling attack is missing Anrich Nortje, they still have talent such as Kagiso Rabada to potentially crush the opposition. They’ve had strong lineups before and have always underperformed, so if they can overcome the nerves, they could be a team to watch out for.
Pakistan could be another surprising threat to other teams. They have exceptionally talented players and even after losing Naseem Shah, they have Haris Rauf and Shaheen Shah Afridi as part of their bowling attack. Pakistan is a versatile team and their not making it to the final of the Asia Cup isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It could be a huge lesson learned which they can take into the World Cup.
Lastly, New Zealand could be a real dark horse in the competition. They’ve always been the team to get to the semi-finals and finals but then never win. Being a fairly small nation, they always seem to be underestimated, but maybe this is the year they pull a win out of the bag.
Bold predictions
Our first bold prediction is that Afghanistan could emerge as a huge threat. When they play they could beat any team, so even the big hitters can’t afford to be complacent. The Afghanistan team boasts some destructive batters, especially the openers, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran. They also have some savage spin bowlers as part of their attack that could devastate their opponents.
Another bold prediction is that Pakistan will triumph over India for the first time in the 50-over World Cup – they’ve won 0 out of 7 over the past few years. This will be the biggest game of the competition, unless, of course, they face each other in the semi-final, or even the final. It’ll be chaos and maybe Pakistan will spring a surprise on everyone.
News and results so far
Some of the latest news includes Bangladesh’s batter, Liton Das, being dismissed by New Zealand’s bowler, Trent Boult. The dismissal happened after the first match ball in Chennai. As for the group stage of the World Cup so far, the results are as follows:
October 5 – England was beaten by New Zealand by 9 wickets
October 6 – the Netherlands were crushed by Pakistan by 81 runs
October 7 – Afghanistan were beaten by Bangladesh by 6 wickets
Sri Lanka were beaten by South Africa by a huge 102 runs
October 8 – Australia were beaten by India by 6 wickets
October 9 – New Zealand beat the Netherlands by 99 runs
October 10 – England crushed Bangladesh by an impressive 136 runs
Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by 6 wickets
October 11 – India beat Afghanistan by 8 wickets
October 12 – South Africa beat Australia by 134 runs
