An Anzac battle for the World Cup

The old army saying SNAFU normally stands for "situation normal all fouled up" or slight variations of that theme. In Australia's case at the World Cup it stands for "situation normal all fixed up".

When Brett Lee was badly injured hard on the heels, shortly after a biceps injury to Andrew Symonds and Australia proceeded to lose five one-day internationals on the trot, the cricket world sighed with relief and said, "At least now we'll have a competitive World Cup."

Coming into the tournament I felt there were six teams with a realistic chance of holding aloft the trophy in Barbados on April 28th. Now after a shambolic group stage and just a few Super Eights matches we're close to being back in familiar territory; "Australia and then a huge gap to the rest."

Teams are dropping off the favoured six list faster than bankrupts are discarded from a broker's clientele. First India failed to even qualify for the final eight. Then West Indies lost their first two Super Eights matches, albeit against the strongest two sides. However, their batting has been so inept and lacking thought that Brian Lara, the one willow wielder to stand out, must be thinking the side has marked time throughout his sixteen-year career. In between two lacklustre performances from West Indies, the Sri Lankan top-order batting, always the big question mark in their challenge, has failed to impress against a one-dimensional South African attack.

And just to make a complete mockery of the computer rankings, the number one side South Africa amply displayed its shortcomings when the bowlers were mauled by Australia and the batsmen, apart from Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis, were mesmerised by a variety of Sri Lankan bowlers.

Result: there are only two teams left who are unsullied - Australia and New Zealand. In years gone by they have fought battles together as the Anzacs but this time they are likely to become involved in hand-to-hand combat to decide the winner of the 2007 World Cup.

Australia has lost players of the calibre of Warne, the Waugh twins, Jason Gillespie and Michael Bevan and yet they still haven't lost a match. What is the rest of the world doing?

It's a depressing thought that with Lee missing and Symonds still feeling his way after injury, the likelihood is that still only New Zealand has the skill and courage to challenge Australia. A statistic even more damning of world cricket is that since Shane Warne played his last one-day game Australia has continued to win at a rate of three matches in four. It doesn't bear thinking about the chances of Australia being toppled if Warne was playing this World Cup, as he had a tendency to gobble up New Zealand batsmen.

Australia has played 22 successive matches at the World Cup without defeat; only South Africa pushed them to the brink with the tied semi-final in 1999. With the way they have regrouped in this tournament there is now the very real prospect that not only will Australia create a record and become the first team to win three successive trophies but they'll do it by also playing two successive World Cups without losing a match.

In this period Australia has lost players of the calibre of Warne, the Waugh twins, Jason Gillespie and Michael Bevan and yet they still haven't lost a match. What is the rest of the world doing?

Australia lose a star player in Lee and say: "Alright, who have we got to replace him?"

New Zealand are the the only side that can put up a fight against the resurgent Australia © AFP

In this case the answer is Shaun Tait. Australia has a system that produces enough good players that there are replacements when leading players go down with injury or retire. The reality of other teams is that they rely so heavily on a few star players that a match is lost if they have a bad day and the game is up if they are injured.

So far New Zealand has shown commendable resilience, coping despite injuries to important players in Lou Vincent, Ross Taylor and Mark Gillespie. In the lead up to the tournament New Zealand showed the rest of the world just how vulnerable Australia's bowling was by twice chasing down totals well in excess of three hundred.

So South Africa and West Indies promptly inserted Australia and both found themselves chasing well in excess of three hundred. They also discovered that Australia had addressed their bowling frailties and were able to prevail. The vulnerability is still there but Australia has succeeded in showing the opposition they will have to play extremely well to expose the flaws.

That is what Australia do; they look in the mirror and face up to their flaws and try to fix them. New Zealand apart, the rest of the teams that started out with such high hopes are now in danger of having plenty of time to face up to their own frailties; they can do it will they're watching the Anzacs battle for the trophy.