When I wrote last time about India in the world cup, it was 2007 and India failed miserably in league matches and went back home. This time they are brilliant and defending their title of 2011. Will India become third-time world champions in Cricket? Let’s analyze.
India already won all the six league matches and ready to take their first knockout match tomorrow with Bangladesh. To win this world cup, India need to make 9 victories in a row, there is no escape from that now. So will they able to hold their champions title of 2011 in 2015 too?
With a great team comes great results and only India and New Zealand had shown their true potentials. The game will be turned when knockout stage (Quarterfinal, semifinal and final) will start. The team which will perform on that particular day will move to the next stage. It’s as simple as that.
The only thing that can stop India in this 2015 world cup will be "The Law of Average". In Cricket, every team or player got catch up with this one and there is no escape. If that shows up in Knockout stage then all hard work will be gone.
India had already won 6 matches in a row. This is the case before the start of aforementioned knockout stage. Then it will be 3 knockout matches and if statistics to be believed in last one year (2014-15), India had won seven matches in a row, only once. Remember, this is the closest team combination which is playing in this world cup too.
If you compare it from 2011 to 2015, till date (Last four year including, world cup) then India have won 7 matches in a row four times and only once eight matches in a row. The eight matches in a row, winning streak is shown below.
We cannot consider four years statistic for this case as the team India had changed a lot since then, still this will do contribute as Law of average for India.
You can check the whole four years statistics here.
India Team records | ESPN Cricinfo
so as a personal conclusion, India needs to better their continuous winning streaks this time to win the world cup. I believe they will very easily make to Semifinals and may be finals too but winning will be dependent on that day performance and also on many other factors, including this one.
Remember 2003 team world cup winning streaks? And how they performed in final. Whole team performed poorly and looked out of place, was that Law of Average, for that Indian team? Remember India's lost to South Africa in 2011 world cup, which actually did the magic to Law of Averages. You can agree or disagree regarding the theory of "The Law Of Averages" but you can't ignore it in Cricket.
©Tapas Majumdar
