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Prediction Time Folks:

Australia
India
NZ
WI
England (Dark Horses, IMO). Rashid is a very good addition to their team.

From my side :)

Australia
SA
India
NZ

This can't be possible I guess. All of them belong to the same group :)

AFAIK, only two of these can go to final 4 stage.

Not all...SA is in the other group. Pakistan is in our group :)

My prediction is:
Australia
England
India
South africa

India & SA will play the final I feel :)

Yes true. I was listing the teams most likely to win in order.

Toppers
Group 1: SA & ENG
Group 2: AUS & IND

Finals: IND vs AUS

Very little competitive edge for teams in T20s. What matters most is the performance at that hour during the match.

For India, Dhoni is back to his self-belief, Kohli is in super form this year. Weak link is bowling but under Indian conditions, with spinners, seem like they çan manage.

Australia seem to have found the right line up in the recent South Africa series. They have found right places for Khwaja, Watson, Warner & Smith. With Maxwell, Marsh & Faulkner they look like a strong unit.

Other teams: Sri Lanka is in shambles, West Indies is hit or miss, have to see the performance of New Zealand without McCullum. South Africa still lack the mental edge, Pakistan look rusty, England appear like dark horse, not the strong horse :)

A six of the first ball and a wicket to follow.
What a start to the tournament!!! (super 10 to be exact)
New zealand ahowing intent and Ashwin showing his intelligence

What a first match ! Looks like this loss will hit our NRR.

The format is such that we will practically have to win every match hereon in to remain in contention.

Now wait for Dhoni and Shastri to blame the pitch and take the curator to task.

Have we ever beaten NZ in a T20 match though? I don't remember honestly.

No, we haven't.

The score is 5-0

India have never beaten NZ in a T20 before. its 5-0 to NZ now. India lost to NZ in 2007 T20 world cup and still went on to win the title. So this time too we can hope to repeat the history.:)

Now that is a huge upset!:Shockked: Early wake-up call for Team India.
Credit to Kiwi spinners for bowling well, this isn't the first time in the recent past where we have played badly in spinner friendly conditions.
On a positive note, the 1 bad game is outta way, to qualify for the semis we have to win every game from hereon & expect some favorable results from the other games.
Btw, Jadeja has forgotten how to bat!

In 2011 ODI WC at home when we were the strong favourites, the loss against SA was an early wake up call and we went on to win the cup.
But I can't see that happening here as we lost while chasing even though it is considered our strength. Secondly no team, really no team can take it for granted in this format.
BAN, PAK and AUS all would like to settle score with us for the recent defeats and in all the World T20s after the first one our record is just horrible. So much so that I fear that if we lose one more match, the interest of the Indian public would die down an we will be having empty stadiums and low audience on TV.
I suddenly remember 2007 WC in WI.

When I was watching the pre match show, I was confused at some of the comments made by Laxman and Akram (And even Boria in another channel). They told that they would be surprised if NZ went in with 3 spinners but wouldn't be surprised if India do so! At the same time they were saying its a 'spinner's dream' pitch.

Agreed that NZ's strength is pace bowling and India's is spin, but IMO a team that plays to the conditions is more difficult to beat than their known formula. More so in T20.
NZ proved that yesterday.

Maybe Indian team were also prepared for pace attack and we could see that they were 'surprised' by the opposition.

a -2.35 NRR to start with is going to hurt the Indian team.

A wake up call to the team and a shocker to the fans- whatever it was, it was a wonderful start to the World cup!

The commentators have stopped making sense a lot time back. Leading the shitty pack is Laxman and Akram - Put them together and I literally have to pull my hair out for the idiotic comments they make. Bhogle seems to be only interested in getting the full names of cricketers of all country correct - watch out for his effort to say it right every time.

Then there are the Danny Morrisions, Pommy Mbangwa followed by the excessively jingoistic Aussie commentators. However, they are all beaten by the Hindi commentators on DD. Just for fun hear them and it would be tough to figure out if they are indeed talking about the same game.

Among the most balanced ones I have heard is Rahul Dravid, Mark Nicholas, David Lloyd and Jonathan Agnew.

As for the cricket, it was a shock defeat for us last night. Every now and then, it seems as if we don't have the patience to pay tough cricket. Players just go for a glory shot and throw it away. And I think it's a misnomer than we are good players of spin, we are decent at best. We are good players when the ball spins less. But when bowlers are accurate (like last night) and don't give freebies then we fold up pretty quickly.

Kohli and MSD looked like the only one who used their head. I am not sure why we keep picking Dhawan - Yeah, he will score the odd 50 but he is far too inconsistent to be a front line batsman.

Now, the equation for us is rather simple - win all games from now on. I like it when its simple :)