Can Dhoni's Devils bring back the cup?

On the eve of India's first group match in the T20 world cup, Dhoni and his men in blue start out as clear favourites to win the world cup. But it is imperative that they dont get over confident with all the media hype around their title defense and the recent success that some of the youngsters have had in the IPL. While Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina have already showed what they are capable of in the warm up games , Dhoni's main worry is the pace bowling department. RP, Irfan and Praveen have failed to impress despite the seamer friendly English conditions while India's fastest bowler Ishant Sharma showed the same promise that he had when he first burst out in the International arena two years ago.

To add to India's woes is the injury of the pace spearhead Zaheer Khan who may not be fit till the super eight matches. The Indian medium pace attack should try and take a cue from Kapil's world cup winning side which won the ODI world cup in the 1983. It was the medium pacers - Kapil Dev, Roger Binny, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Madan Lal who won the tournament for us and who can forget the memorable final where Mohinder Amarnath bowled a dream spell of 3 for 12 which won India the game and him the Man of the Match of the final. Another important statistic is that Roger Binny was the highest wicket taker of that world cup picking up 18 wickets in 8 matches. MS Dhoni's team has all the talent to emulate that performance. IPL's purple cap holder RP Singh muscled his way back into the team with an outstanding performance in the IPL which got his team to win the tournament and Praveen Kumar played in the team that was the other finalist. So both men are coming off some good success from recent past and Dhoni will hope that the first two warm up games were just an aberration and once the real games begin they will be back with their best. The other positive that came out of the IPL was the success of India's part time bowlers with the three hatricks in the tournament going to Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma. Their bowling will come in handy in the middle overs if one of the regular spinners go for too many runs and Dhoni will rely on them to fill in some of the overs.

Rohit Sharma's emergence as a strong opening batsman and the sublime form that he is in, has created a problem of plenty for Dhoni. The media buzz around his differences with Sehwag is also not helping. We pray that the things said in the media are not true and that all is well between the two, but such issues at the eve of such an important tournament certainly doesn't help the team. The thrashing of our arch rivals at the Oval the other day would have definetely boosted the morale of the team big time and we hope that the good form just continues and Captain 'Marvel' - as they call him, lifts the cup on 12th June at Lords.

I would like to sign off saying that my money is on India to reach the final. For the final, the money stays in the pocket!