World Cup-ending throat restrictions and political squabblings

Part two of the Confectionery Stall's exposé of the World Cup teams' potential tournament-ending weaknesses, as revealed exclusively to this column by inside sources, including statistics, partially informed assumptions, outright speculation, and guesswork.

India: The bits when they are not batting
India's bowling on their never-ending southern-hemisphere sojourn has explored most of the nether regions of ineffectiveness. Their batting has been frequently glorious. It is a combination that endears them to fans of batting, but raises a significant obstacle to winning a World Cup. Their batting could win any tournament. Their bowling could lose any match. Their fielding is not the most 21st-century in the tournament.

Achilles Heel Vulnerability Rating: Wear steel medieval greaves

At the 2011 World Cup, India's bowlers had the second-worst collective tournament average (32.1) and economy rate (5.07) of the eight quarter-finalists, ahead only of England. (And their strike rate - a wicket every 38 balls - was just the sixth best of the top eight teams.) Nevertheless the tournament ended with millions of Indians celebrating on the streets, most of them toasting the fact that India had won the tournament, rather than the glory of outbowling England over the course of the competition. I assume.

You do not need a great bowling attack to win a World Cup. But the 2015 attack looks less secure than that of 2011, and it stretches credibility to think that they can bowl sufficiently not badly for three games in a row to give their sumptuous batting arsenal a prospect of ultimate triumph. That said, if they can restrict their opposition to under 550 or so, they will still have a chance.

South Africa: Wrong hemisphere
Ranked the No. 1 team in the ODI world, with the current top two 50-over batsmen (de Villiers and Amla), and the highest-rated one-day bowler in the tournament (Steyn, third in the rankings behind the absent action-tweaking Ajmal and Narine), South Africa clearly have a good chance of winning the World Cup. Their lower-order batting, without having the potency of that of some other teams, looks less likely to rhubarb itself into oblivion as it did in their quarter-final crumble in 2011.

However, this is the third World Cup to take place below the equator. In the previous two, South Africa were defeated and defrocked by mathematics, which evidently goes the wrong way down the Proteas' cricketing plughole in this hemisphere. A dunderheaded rain rule scuppered them in 1992, and in 2003 a Duckworth-Lewis blooper left them wishing they had paid more attention in maths classes at school. The southern hemisphere has been cruel to South Africa in this competition. They have also been knocked out by a fellow southern-hemisphere team in three of the last four World Cups; and that early D/L-aggravated exit in 2003 was caused in part by a thrashing by New Zealand.

Achilles Heel Vulnerability Rating:: A nice pair of Italian leather ankle boots should be sufficient

Forget the alleged choke reflex, forget the unproven fringe players, South Africa are the greatest at the top of the order and with the new ball. In a tournament that may well be decided, or at least significantly shaped, by early wickets, they will be hard to beat.

Pakistan: Absent bowlers
Pakistan's batting line-up has "This Team Will Not Win the World Cup" written all over it. That has not been an unusual World Cup phenomenon. Their bowling, however, has lost its "This Attack Might Bail Out the Underpowered Batting" label, with injury to Junaid Khan and the elbow-straightening forced absences of Saeed Ajmal and the now-injured-anyway Mohammad Hafeez.

Achilles Heel Vulnerability Rating:: Wear steel medieval greaves, accessorised with ski boots

No batting line-up should be over-reliant on Shahid Afridi, however wonderful he may be as a cricketing spectacle. But then, Pakistan are Pakistan. Even when they do not really play like Pakistan. Possible winners. (Possibility may be a 1% chance. But it is a possibility nonetheless.)

West Indies: The ageing process
The former standard-bearers of one-day cricket have endured a two-decade slump, which they have chosen to aggravate with some childishly destructive political squabblings. If only the human body had not been designed to deteriorate with age. With the likes of Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Joel Garner and Andy Roberts still in the team, their prospects would be looking distinctly rosier.

Achilles Heel Vulnerability Rating:: Leg in a cement mixer

When you are a painful shadow of the cricketing force you once were, with a sporadically effective batting line-up and a bowling attack that will scare absolutely no one, one thing you probably do not need is infantile behind-the-scenes political bickerings stripping your team of some of its more potent one-day players. Might cause a shock. More likely to be victims of a shock. Unlikely to cause three shocks.

Zimbabwe: Cold, hard reality
Zimbabwe are 500-1 to win this tournament. England were, at one stage, 500-1 to win the 1981 Headingley Test. Zimbabwe do not have Ian Botham. More than 500 500-1 shots have failed to win since 1981. And those odds are ungenerous in any case.

Achilles Heel Vulnerability Rating:: Deposit leg in deep underground vault

Dreams can come true. But not if it is a dream about Zimbabwe winning this World Cup. Zimbabwe have not beaten a Test nation in a World Cup match this millennium. Competitiveness would be an advance and an achievement.

Ireland: The absence of hope
Ireland have been the leading Associate member team in the past two World Cups, beating Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2007, and England in 2011. They, and other aspirational cricket nations, have been rewarded for their achievements by world cricket hauling up its drawbridge of progress to protect its crumbling medieval castle of feudal conservatism.

To participate in 2019, Ireland face a tough qualification tournament in the subcontinent. For a tournament that will be played in England - impeccable administrative logic, as ever, from the weird world of sport. A sense of sheer futility might be Ireland's biggest problem in 2015. Although their form has not been too good. That won't help either.

Achilles Heel Vulnerability Rating:: Hide heel and surrounding area in a remote mountain cave, encased in reinforced Kevlar

Another Test scalp would be a fitting middle finger to the 2019 format. Winning the entire tournament would make world cricket spontaneously decommission itself and become a monk.

United Arab Emirates: Cricket
Could the Emirates' unpromising combination of age and inexperience upset the applecart and storm to glory on March 29? No. The UAE might be very good at building 830-metre skyscrapers and completely pointless luxury micro-islands, but they are not yet quite as proficient at building World Cup-winning cricket teams. Understandably enough.

Achilles Heel Vulnerability Rating:: Fire leg into space

There is not a snowball's chance in a desert that the UAE will win the tournament. That said, there is a ski slope in the desert in Dubai.