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The never-ending tournament kicks off

In five days time, what is probably the most bloated world championship in a global sport will kick off. The ICC doesn't seem to have learnt lessons from 2007 and this next edition of the cricket World Cup will probably end up being as tedious as the previous one. Hopefully there will be enough upsets to keep things somewhat interesting over the first 42 matches before the quarter-finals. 42 may not seem like that many considering that the football world cup has 48 before a round of 16. But considering how wide the net of football is spread, that's appropriate. But 42 matches for a sport that only 10 countries play seriously and another half-dozen try to play seriously is absurd, to say the least. Bloating averages and causing more injuries is all it will achieve worst case and best case, we might have Bangladesh reach the quarter finals. Pity that Afghanistan could not make it amongst the minnows, they would have definitely been worth watching more than Canada or the Netherlands.

On the plus side, the fact that most of the top teams are relatively evenly matched and there is no clear favourite means that come the knockout stages things should get quite exciting. That plus how teams deal with the UDRS and the Batting powerplay will be my main points of interest. Let the tosses (and Dhoni losing them promptly ;)) begin.

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