Sunil Gavaskar picks England as favourites for ICC Cricket World Cup

Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has picked England as his favourite for the ICC Cricket World Cup citing their batting and bowling talent as a reasonThe defending champions England because of the kind of talent that they have at at the top of the order the batting order they have got two or three worldclass allrounders who can change the game with both bat and ball They have also got a very good bowling lineup experienced bowling line up so at the moment in my book certainly Gavaskar said on Star SportsHe also highlighted the importance of warmup matches and shared his experience of having a great team bonding in the 1983 World CupAlso ReadRain washes out India v England World Cup warmup gameIt affects massively because when you talked about that 1983 we played their two games against the minor counties we lost both those games but there was so much to learn from both those games Mind you that was early June towards the end of May specifically and it was really cold and the pitches were green and the ball was seeming around so even minor county bowlers can make you look a little ordinary and that is exactly what happened but it gave us a lot to think about he saidThe fact that we had just beaten the West Indies in the West Indies a couple of months earlier gave us the belief that sure this is just the kind of wakeup call that you need This is just the kind of thing that you need to know that in England the pitches are going to be different the conditions are going to be different and the ball will move around in the air off the surface so better be prepared for thatBut the best part about travelling in England is that you are travelling in a team bus where there is very little chance of groups being formed because the coach itself is such that you keep moving around people bump into each other they are a bit of a mateship leg pulling if I might call it that a little bit of teasing here and there and then maybe watching a little bit of the video which is put up in a video movie But it builds a spirit of togetherness you understand each other and I think that is probably one of the best things that can happen In an aircraft when you travel from what can you do in an aircraft You cannot go and talk to the person behind in your seat thats very difficult So I think that is what helped us in 1983 for sure he addedIrfan Pathan has also named his World Cup favouritesI am very excited to see how India performs and I really think they are one of the favourites for sure because especially last couple of series like Asia Cup and the way India played against Australia as well in the home conditions I think they are ticking all the boxes They have players who are performing really well but you have a guy like Mohammed Shami who is not in the part of playing 11 consistently who is a worldclass bowler itself so it shows the kind of team India has and at the same time the bench strength India hasThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever