Certain of nothing but uncertainty

Hello and welcome back to my blog

Pakistan vs West Indies

India vs Australia

South Africa vs New Zealand

Sri Lanka vs England

Well you couldn't and shouldn't be too surprised by that group of teams possessing quarter-final births and although the minnows put up some fight - more than some thought possible - this was likely to be the final 8 from day 1; perhaps England will be feeling a little more relieved than others, a slightly more noticeable sweeping of sweat from the brow? The fun of this group of fixtures is the combinations that will appear should certain teams beat others.

Keep in mind that the winner of PAK and WI will play the winner of IND and AUS. Plus the winner of SA and NZ will play the winner of SRL and ENG

• Thus it is easy to imagine an India/Pakistan semi-final which is always fun (similar to lighting a box of fireworks and not knowing quite what will happen - only that something will). For this favourite of match-ups a good Pakistan team must turn up against West Indies - that is all that is required because their best easily outmatches that of their opponents. However these two teams are the most unpredictable which means that every other team is quite happy not to play them in a knock out match (although perhaps one more than the other)
• India and Australia are the two power houses in this tournament and the outcome of that titanic clash is very difficult to pick as a result. The top order of both teams is very strong and aggressive but the difference might prove to be that the runs have been more evenly split amongst the Indians. This is slightly counter-balanced by the pace available to Ponting to attack the relatively untested Indian team (in terms of Lee and Tait's pace) but then we saw what Canada were able to do to them. India will feel that they have been under pressure more often than Australia and that experience makes them slight favourites for me
• On the other side we find South Africa and New Zealand fighting for the Southern-Hemisphere spot and this seems the easiest to pick on first glance. It really is David and Goliath in terms of cricket: you have a large, powerful team that is the cricket version of efficiency looking to crush the side from a country of just four million people that has almost no experience by comparison. To win against the African juggernaut the first task is to prevent the likes of Kallis, De Villiers and Duminy from lifting the total above 300 which will be difficult enough. Then you have the second task which is to bat well against a strong pace attack and suddenly (from nowhere it seems) more-than-useful spinners I don't think this will be the big problem, so far in this tournament the New Zealand team has faced better bowlers in both departments and although they were unequal to the task on those occasions they don't run into the South Africans unprepared
• Sri Lanka have lured England to their spinning wicket and England will surely fight but just as surely be defeated by a team as used to the conditions as the English are to rain. Probably the easiest to pick of the four games

Although I have my favourites they are guesses at best and I wouldn't put money on any of them. The uncertainty of the results is the best part of it all and at the very least because I feel I need to watch more of these games than in the previous round.

(NOTE: the post up until this point was written before the Pakistan victory, sorry caning of the West Indies team)

Now to other matters: congratulations to the people in the fantasy league who have crossed the 10,000 point mark you do your cricket intellect proud. Also, at last count I will be donating $66 to the Christchurch relief effort with 10 days to go until the end of the World Cup - thank you very much to the people who have supported this. There will be two more posts here before the end of the tournament (one before the semis and one before the final) so still time to get the unique views up!

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again

It's good bye for now