The benefit of hindsight

In my last blog on Thursday, I commented on the excessive length of the cricket World Cup, and in particular the predictability and one-sidedness of many of the initial group matches.

How wrong I was!

Ireland set the ball rolling on Thursday evening with a thrilling tie against Zimbabwe in a match which had seemed all but lost. Chasing 222 to win, Zimbabwe appeared to be easing to what would only have been their second win in 15 ODIs, only for three wickets to fall in the final two overs, the last on the final ball as they desperately tried to complete a winning run.

An amazing result, but that was just the warm-up act for yesterday's day of double drama. Ireland - on St Patrick's day, of course - skittled out Pakistan for 132, and then held their nerve to complete the job after sliding to 113 for 7. And Bangladesh did a similar demolition job on India, bowling them out for 191 before comfortably completing their run chase.

In a word: wow!

I said on Thursday that we could already confidently predict who the qualifying teams for the "Super 8" would be. Already Pakistan are out - and this is with most teams still to play their second game.

It's at times like this I wish I stopped making such sweeping predictions. But then, where's the fun in not sticking your neck out? And if sport was so predictable, then we wouldn't all be so captivated by it.

I look forward to seeing more shocks and being proven wrong again in the coming days. Mind you, if you think that means I'm going to predict a Netherlands victory over Australia this afternoon, you've got another think coming ...