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India the team to beat in WC 2011: Morrison

July 15, 2010 20:04 IST

New Zealand bowler-turned-commentator Danny Morrison predicts that India will be the side to beat at next year's ICC Cricket World Cup.

"I think India has the best opportunity to lift the World Cup this time round," says the 44-year-old from Auckland. "It has to be good for them playing on home turf. It adds pressure but that's part of hosting.

"Sachin Tendulkar, the master, deserves to have some sort of winners' medal hanging round his neck but it's not all about him. Cricket is a tough game and it's also about whether Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni can deliver for India. Can they do it for Sachin?

"You feel that India want something special to happen and this year I think you've got to go with the India team to emulate the 1983 side led by Kapil Dev ," says the former fast bowler who claimed 126 ODI wickets and 160 at Test level.

Also on this week's show, Bangladesh coach Jamie Siddons talks about his side's progress, including its recent first-ever ODI win over England.

"It was a long time before we got our first victory, the boys have played fantastic cricket and when we were in Bristol we were confident of our abilities and our bowling and fielding worked well. The bowling changes reaped rewards for us for that match at Bristol against England," says Siddons.

"I talk to the side about improving their skills and working from day to day, the side need to keep going and getting better and better. We can beat teams we just need to keep backing up the skills we have and improving on all aspects," continues Siddons.

The show can be used in whole or part by radio stations that want cricket content, while the public can also download it straight from the ICC website.

Also on this week's show there is a full preview of the upcoming Test series between Kumar Sangakkara's Sri Lanka and MS Dhoni's India that gets underway on Sunday 18 July.

Apart from the above interviews, the show has the usual round up of cricketing news and an update of the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test and ODI cricket.

The weekly ICC Cricket World audio show runs for 15 minutes and has been put together by the ICC's global broadcast partner ESPN STAR Sports.

Source: ANI