Sharjah Cup

You can't predict in cricket until the last run is taken or the last bowl is bowled. Many interesting cricket matches has shown rather proven that. But still there exists a world called performance on the basis of which one can say something about the result of a match or a series.

South African, Pakistan and India are participating in this cup. Pakistan recent record has been tremendous. South African made a clean sweep when they last came to Sharjah beating Pakistan and India in all the matches. India's performance has been a bit down at Sharjah but after winning the ODI series against South African and Pakistan with not all of their superstars, India should be considered as a strong contestant.

South African and Australia are the strongest teams of cricket. Australia is the World Champion while South African lost to them (not exactly) in the semi-final of the world cup, one of the most thrilling and interesting match which I have even seen. South African had a reputation of being an unlucky team that they perform excellently during the whole tournament but in the final the matches don't come to their way. In world cup they were the most unfortunate team. In world cup 96, they lost to West Indies in a way that no was expecting it to happen. In world cup 92, rain was the reason of their loss against England. Similarly, in finals of many tournaments their record has not been as good as their ODI performance in general is.

South Africa's fielding it needs no comments. Everyone knows that they are the strongest fielding side of the world. Their bowling is also very strong and their batting goes up to number 10. Something extraordinary and their all-rounders are not just all-rounders (like English all-rounders), they are true batsman and good bowlers. You can take Klusener as an example.

Considering South African as a team, they are most likely to win this trophy but you need one factor to be with you and that is luck. Best of "luck" to them.

Pakistan, the defending champion. They have won previous 2 or 3 trophies at Sharjah. So, they are in great form at Sharjah but now they have a lot of problems. The biggest problem is fitness of players. They don't have Saeed, Saqlain and Azhar. Wasim's fitness is also in doubt. They have lost their last five ODIs. They have lost consecutively 7 or 11 ODIs against South Africa. So, they should be under a lot of mental tension.

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