With the 2007 cricket World Cup just around the corner, I decided to take a peek at some of the One Day International stats of some of the main teams. With the help of my favourite source for stats and analysis – Cricinfo – I set about my task.

No better place to start than the batting, so I had a look at the maximum number of career runs scored in ODIs. Leading the pack is India's Sachin Tendulkar with 14,728 runs. The top 10 run-getters also includes Pakistan's Inzamam ul-Huq, in second place with 11,591, Sanath Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka (11,442), Saurav Ganguly of India (10,302), Brian Lara of the West Indies (10,136), India's Rahul Dravid (9,973 runs), Australian captain Ricky Ponting (9,670), Mohammed Azharuddin of India (9,378) Sri Lanka's Aravida De Silva (9,284) and Saeed Anwar of Pakistan (8,823 runs).

If we prune the top 25 all-time ODI run-getters chart to include only those playing currently, we get a list that includes (in sorted order of highest number of runs): Tendulkar, Inzamam, Jayasuriya, Ganguly, Lara, Dravid, Ponting, Adam Gilchrist of Australia (8,531 runs), Marvan Atapattu of Sri Lanka (8,448), Jacques Kallis of South Africa (8,327), Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan (7,608), and Stephen Fleming of New Zealand (7,484).

In other words, only 12 of the top 25 all-time highest run-getters are still playing. The rest of the list includes legends like Azharuddin, Anwar, Mark Waugh, et al. Of these 12, three are from India, two from Pakistan, two from Australia, two from Sri Lanka, one from the West Indies, one from New Zealand and one from South Africa.

Let us assume that Rahul Dravid gets the 27 runs he needs to take him to the 10,000 mark during the maximum of four games that India have against Sri Lanka prior to the World Cup. Let us also assume that Ponting could get to the 10,000 mark. He has a potential maximum of eight games to play and he needs 330 runs.

And if we further prune the top 25 currently-playing list to include only those who have made over 10,000 ODI career runs prior to the World Cup, we have seven players, three of whom are from India.

Indeed, if we assume that Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly will score an additional 500 runs between them in India's remaining four games before the World Cup, then, in these three magnificent players, India would account for a total of approximately 36,000 runs. That's a lot of experience, and a lot of runs too!

Now let's look at the number of runs and averages together. Only 14 of the top 50 ODI run-getters of all time average over 40 runs per match. Of these, only seven are still playing (eight if we include Inzamam, whose average of 39.96 is very close to 40). Of these eight, three are from India.

Of course, there are players like Mahendra Singh Dhoni of India and Mike Hussey of Australia who have an above-40 batting average. However, here we are looking at a combination of experience (as measured by the number of career runs) and consistency (as measured by a 40-plus career average measured over a prolonged period of time).

So, if we look at a mix of experience and consistency, we have eight players that make the grade, namely:  Tendulkar (Runs: 14,728, Average: 44.22), Inzamam (11,591, 39.96), Ganguly (10,302, 40.88), Lara (10,136, 40.54), Dravid (9,973, 40.05), Ponting (9,670, 42.22), Kallis (8,327, 43.59) and Mohammed Yousuf (7,608, 41.34). Three of these eight players are from India!

These figures tell us that India’s top-order batsmen have a mountain of runs between them, lots of experience and great ability. If the Modern Trinity of Indian cricket click together, India must have a chance. All they need is the right mental make-up - to back up their experience - and the application to pile on the runs.

But of course, there is a small matter of bowling and fielding. We will leave that for another day and another analysis!