The highly anticipated 2023 World Cup is only six months away, set to take place in India. England, who won the tournament in 2019 on home soil, will be the defending champions. New Zealand, the runners up of the previous edition, and Australia are expected to be strong contenders as well. However, all attention will be on Rohit Sharma’s team, who are expected to replicate the success achieved by MS Dhoni. Nevertheless, former England captain Michael Vaughan criticized the Indian team as “underachieving” and hinted at removing them from the list of title favourites.
The trend of home teams winning the ODI World Cup was started by the Dhoni-led side in 2011. Since then, Australia won the tournament in 2015, and England lifted the trophy in 2019. This suggests that India could follow the trend and secure their third World Cup win in October later this year.
The Indian team has been facing serious concerns following their recent series loss at home against Australia, with Michael Vaughan launching a brutal attack on the side, labelling them as “underachieving in white-ball cricket”. Vaughan had previously made similar comments when India lost in the 2022 T20 World Cup. According to the former England captain, the current Rohit-led team is far from being the title contenders.
Vaughan believes England are favourites to win
Earlier last week, in an interview with Khaleej Times, Vaughan had in fact hailed England as the favourites for the World Cup.
“I have to say that England are the favourites even if it’s in conditions that you know is little bit different to what it was in 2019 when they won the World Cup (in England). They (England) have got good spin options. And they have got good players who play spin nicely. They have got good variations with the seam bowlers, Jofra Archer coming back (from injury) is huge. And Mark Wood is bowling at 90 miles per hour. So I think England have got the experience,”
