Former South African great Shaun Pollock predicted the Proteas would win a first World Cup by beating Australia in the final.
If you want to write a perfect script for South Africa then it will be to beat New Zealand in the semi-finals in Auckland and then go on to play the final against Australia and win at Melbourne. If it goes as per the plans then it will be a South Africa v
New Zealand semi-final
Daniel Vettori with 298 wickets is close to become first Kiwi bowler to take 300 ODI wickets but he is more focused to get 400 in Tests.
I spent a long time thinking about those Test records and sometimes one-day cricket was put a little bit in the background, and I've come into this tournament thinking a little bit that way as well. I haven't really thought about it, but it would be a lovely thing to achieve
Team elder Mahela Jayawardene says Sri Lanka will have to tough it out at the World Cup amid a spate of tournament-ending injuries.
It's always tough. This is the third guy (Batsman Dimuth Karunaratne who has been replaced with leg-spinner Seekkuge Prasanna) we have lost from our original 15 in the space of four weeks. But we have some experienced
players to back them up
Jos Buttler expects England to resurrect their campaign, saying playing under pressure may just be what the struggling team needs.
We have got to win two games of cricket and maybe it's good to have that pressure on ourselves. Hopefully, that will bring out the performance that we need. In simple terms, we have got to play better than we have
so far to get
through to the quarter-finals
Aussie opener Aaron Finch says Australia are not sweating on crunch match against Sri Lanka even if defeat would make their path to the final more difficult.
I don't think it matters who you play, to win the World Cup you have to beat the best teams in the world. This is a big game, it's important. You don't want to finish in the bottom two in your group, it does make it a little bit harder in your path to the final