No need to mourn just yet

UMPIRE'S POST

Fortunes will turn many times over as the World Cup progresses.

All the losers, winners, the two teams that tied a match and Indian supporters (if we lost to Bangladesh last night), must hold their horses and the mock funeral processions.

The World Cup of the shorter version of cricket, made up of 51 games over 47 days, is marathon, and fortunes will turn.

As the people who took out mock funerals of Indian cricketers after their dismal beginning four years ago would testify, many world cups have been startling turnaround tales. If anything, the length and format of this one provides more leeway.

Given the constitution of the four groups, each of the two major teams in the four groups will have two matches against minnows to mess it up. Once in the Super Eights, there will be six more games to play before the semi-final stage.

The last time the Cup had a format close to this "" in Australia in 1992, when nine teams played one another in a league system before the top four qualified for the semi-finals "" Pakistan neutralised a truly abysmal first half to win the tournament.

Having lost three of the first five games, Pakistan, all out for 74 against England, would have been eliminated but for the rain that washed off the rest of the match. On the other hand, New Zealand, which swept all in the league stage, were bludgeoned to defeat in the semi-final by an unheralded Inzamam-ul-Haq.

In 1999, when Australia lost to New Zealand and Pakistan and faced elimination, captain Steve Waugh said the task was simple, to win the next seven. He did. That tournament hinged on one dropped catch off Waugh's bat by South Africa's Herschelle Gibbs. (Waugh says he never made the fabled remark: "Son, you just dropped the World Cup." But he likes it so much that does not care to deny.)

The most touching turnarounds of all of course was by Kapil's Devils in 1983, even though the tournament was considerably shorter. India lost two of the first four matches and were teetering at five down for 17 against first-timer, non-Test playing, Zimbabwe, when Kapil played perhaps the most impactful knock ever of 175 not out. The rest of course, including the victory over the mighty, two-time defending champions, West Indies in the final, is history.

South Africa, often dubbed the chokers of world cricket, did quite the opposite in 1996. Having won all five group matches comfortably, their batting came undone in the quarter-finals against the West Indies facing the innocuous off-spin of Roger Harper.

This World Cup has already started on a promising note; after a dismal show in the warm-up against India, West Indies has beaten Pakistan. With no disrespect to Sir Gary Sobers, who declared the World Cup open last Monday, it can safely be said again: Let the games begin.