With the ICC Champions Trophy now ended, it seems like a good time to see how teams are doing in their preparation for the World Cup. Oh, and also, hello world! I'm Arvind and this is my first article. Being a huge sports fan (cricket, basketball, tennis and F1 in particular), I am looking forward to sharing my views on this forum.

On November 5, the month-long ICC Champions Trophy ended with Australia completely destroying the West Indies in the final. What started as an interesting contest, with the Windies openers hammering the bowling for the first 45 minutes, soon turned into a horribly one-sided contest. The most interesting part of Australia's run chase was when the rain came down and I changed channels to watch some arbit wrestling match. It was a seriously disappointing final to what was a fairly good tournament and what I saw leads me to believe that Australia are favourites by a long way to win the World Cup. But even an idiot could tell you that. These guys always deliver under pressure, are so damn consistent, and it seems there are no kinks in the armour. That said, I'm not a big fan of Shane Watson opening the batting, even though he won the man-of-the-match award (it should have gone to Nathan Bracken). I realise the Aussies are trying to groom a genuine all-rounder, but do you really want Watson opening when you have one of the best batsman in the world in Michael Hussey coming in at six? And don't tell me Australia don't have finishers if Hussey opens, not with Damien Martyn, Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke in the side.

The bigger question is - who are the second best side in the world? Prior to the Champions Trophy, I had my money on India and England (when fully fit). India have impact players in Yuvraj Singh, Verinder Sehwag and Mahendra Dhoni and there's always Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. England have Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen, homesick Steve Harmison and a bunch of other useful batsmen. Both sides failed to live up to expectations, though, and didn't make the semis. All I can say now is, all the teams from two to eight are very, very close to each other - anyone can beat anyone on their day. So basically, any of these guys can be runners-up at the World Cup (OK, I know its not a foregone conclusion that Australia will win, but it’s highly probable).

West Indies look good now under the leadership of Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan keeps proving he's a world-class ODI batsman and of course Chris Gayle is stepping up and starting to deliver consistently. South Africa haven't been in the greatest batting form of late with Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith struggling, but their bowling is looking really good. New Zealand were/are/forever will be the dark horse, Pakistan will be weakened (though not as significantly as people think) by the absence of their two main quickies but still have enough talent to make their presence felt. And then there’s the last side to win a World Cup before Australia - Sri Lanka. The islanders are always a threat with Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vass and Sanath Jayasuriya in their ranks and Mahela Jayawardene is maturing into an awesome captain. All in all, it’s too close to call and I'll go out on a limb here and say England, New Zealand and India will make the World Cup semis. Time will tell.

Turning away from cricket, I'll give a huge prize to anyone who can tell me who the world numbers three to ten are in men’s tennis. Seriously, who are these guys and would you pay money to see a Mario Ancic vs David Nalbandian final? No offence to them, but if Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal got injured next year, the whole world would stop watching tennis! Speaking of Federer, he was in amazing form in the Masters Cup Final, showing once again why he is the best in the world and one of the best of all time.

On the basketball front, the NBA season has just tipped off and the Utah Jazz (for the record, they have been my favourite team for the last 10 years) are actually leading at this point. Its early days, but these are good signs for any Jazz fan. The surprising thing is, some of the better teams are struggling. Phoenix, Miami and Dallas have started slow, though the Mavs seem to be back on track now.