Sunil Gavaskar | ICC World Cup 2019 |
Sunil Gavaskar. (Photo by Philip Brown/Getty Images)

The ICC World Cup 2019 is round the corner, and every team have begun their full-fledged preparations to give their best shot in the biggest cricketing extravaganza. England and Wales will host the 12th edition of the quadrennial tournament commencing from May 30. As the competition has started approaching closer, former cricketers and pundits have started predicting their winners for the marquee event. Recently, former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar predicted transformed England team as the favourites for the tournament.

Since England’s ouster from the 2015 World Cup, England led by the Eoin Morgan has played a different brand of cricket. They have come out aggressive taking on the opposition and have looked invincible in this format of the game. As a result, they are currently at the top of the ICC ODI Rankings. In the last two years, England have won 34 of their 49 games while three of them produced no result. Moreover, the statistics drastically improves when England plays at home. They have lost only four games out of the 22 matches in since January 2017 which shows their dominance in this format.

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England Cricket Team | ICC World Cup 2019 |
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Sunil Gavaskar tipped the host as the favourites simply because of the way they have played cricket in the last few years. He also added they will be oozing with confidence and will play some outstanding cricket.

“England are the favourites. Simply because of the way they are playing cricket, the complete turnaround in their cricketing attitude and approach after their disastrous 2015 World Cup,” Gavaskar told Reuters in an interview.

“England have got a very good team, they have got lots of confidence. You have seen them in all the recent matches and they have been playing outstanding cricket,” he added.

Home advantage will be with England

Moreover, Sunil Gavaskar feels the home advantage will also go in favour of England in the upcoming World Cup. He drew reference from the last two showpiece event where the hosts – India and Australia won the trophy. Despite selecting England as the favourites, Gavaskar said other teams are also playing good cricket.

If you go by what has happened in the last couple of World Cups, the host team has won,” he added.

“But, of course, in cricket anything can happen. While England start the favourites, there are other teams which are also playing some good cricket,” he concluded.

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