Yesterday the Groups were announced of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015
Pakistan and India are in the same Group :@:
**Pool A: England, Australia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Qualifier 2 and Qualifier 3
****Pool B: South Africa, India, Pakistan, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Ireland and Qualifier 4
More news at **ICC World Cup 2015 : World Cup final returns to Melbourne | Cricket News | ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 | ESPN Cricinfo
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Pakistan's nemesis is in the same group yet again. Ireland.
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
It will be interesting… Pakistan opens their 2015 World Cup Campaign against arch rivals and defending champions India in a day and night encounter on February 15. That will very well set the tone for Pakistan. The T20 team, with many fresh faces, looked good in the West Indies. We can only hope Pakistan starts to build an exciting and competitive team for the World Cup. With the schedule announced by ICC, there will be an urgency to have a cohesive and talented team gel together and soon.
Abdul Quddus
DET-United States Central Command
(http://www.centcom.mil/ur)
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Unfortunately Aamer still won't be playing sigh, hopefully Asad/Rahat/Ehsan will be groomed by then to comprise an attack of Junaid, Irfan, Ehsan/Asad/Rahat with a game or two for Umar Gul (yeah he is not going anywhere).
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Interesting, however Pool A is a tougher group IMHO.
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Unfortunately Aamer still won't be playing sigh, hopefully Asad/Rahat/Ehsan will be groomed by then to comprise an attack of Junaid, Irfan, Ehsan/Asad/Rahat with a game or two for Umar Gul (yeah he is not going anywhere).
Lets see.
Hoping against hope that somehow they let him off a bit earlier to play. PCB needs a good reputable person "elected" as Chairman to even try smoothing things out with ICC. This interim adhoc stuff only reduces Pakistan's repo with ICC and give BCCI even more strong foothold against PCB.
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Every team plays 6 matches. Keeping in mind our pathetic record against India in world cup matches we will have to win the other 5.
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Pakistan's nemesis is in the same group yet again. Ireland.
I thought you meant India
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Interesting, however Pool A is a tougher group IMHO.
Really!!!
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Top four teams will advance to QF. Pakistan along SA, India and WI will most likely advance.
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Unfortunately Aamer still won't be playing sigh, hopefully Asad/Rahat/Ehsan will be groomed by then to comprise an attack of Junaid, Irfan, Ehsan/Asad/Rahat with a game or two for Umar Gul (yeah he is not going anywhere).
Rahat NO
Please Groom Junaid Irfan and two more fast bowlers Gul is past
I hope Irfan remains fit he will be lethal on NZ and Aussies tracks
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Pakistan's nemesis is in the same group yet again. Ireland.
That was a fluke victory by Ireland against us......We are going to avenge that defeat in this WC for sure
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
I think I should visit my bro in 2015 
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
What…no real pitches…what the heck is a drop in pitch???
A rental World Cup | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo
ICC World Cup 2015
A rental World Cup
The prefabricated surfaces prepared for 2015 are likely to be of the inoffensive kind that administrators can rely on for high scores, but will not add to the experience in the way the local turf did in 1992
Daniel Brettig
July 30, 2013
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An American band called Houndmouth appeared recently on David Letterman’s Late Show. Other than their good time, mid-western tunes, the most amusing element of the performance was the tag “RENTALS” emblazoned across the group’s bass drum. It was a joke, of course, but taking a glance down the fixtures for the next World Cup, it was hard to avoid applying a similar tag a little more seriously to many of the venues employed by the Australia and New Zealand organisers for 2015.
One of the first trends to pop out when observing the schedule for the tournament is that no fewer than five of its seven knockout matches will take place on drop-in wickets at football grounds - two at the MCG, one each in Wellington and Auckland, and one at Adelaide Oval, a ground that has just lost its famed strip of turf to the demands of AFL expedience.
Only the SCG has managed to maintain its place as both a cricket ground and a favoured venue, courtesy of a partial facelift in the nick of time. Even then, the ground that was recently lauded globally for the graceful way with which it celebrated its 100th Test match had to beat off the entreaties of Sydney’s drop-in Olympic Stadium, which has struggled to be loved by players even in a format as transient as Twenty20.
By contrast, the Gabba appears to have lost out because its redevelopment arrived too early, being completed more than a decade ago. Little consideration seems to have been given to the fact that Brisbane and Perth provide two of the more unique surfaces to play cricket in the world. Certainly the incentive to retain a pitch of genuine character has fallen well behind that to ensure a venue is bigger, brighter and more entertainment complex than cricket ground.
Cricket’s need to “fit in” among the other sports played around it in Australia and New Zealand has never been more succinctly stated. The game has become a minor tenant in many sporting venues across the two countries, and it is worth measuring the cost of this shift. Australia’s struggling Ashes batsmen have complained about the loss of pitch characteristics around the country, and drop-in wickets do little to help.
The prefabricated surfaces prepared for 2015 are likely to be of the inoffensive kind that administrators can rely on for high scores and late finishes, but will not provide any sort of addition to the experience in the way the local turf did during the 1992 edition of the cup. Back then, the bounce and swing on offer in Australia contrasted neatly with the slower, lower surfaces on the other side of the “ditch” and provided a rich blend of tactical and technical conundrums.
As Ricky Ponting put it when looking over Adelaide amid its redevelopment last year: “Most often grounds change for the better, but sometimes they change for the better of other sports. When you look at our grounds now, all our grounds around Australia have always been cricket grounds but they’ve changed into football grounds more than anything these days, and cricket’s trying to survive on football ovals.”
In the case of the World Cup, there has been some level of goodwill extended towards cricket by the football codes, at least in part because a gap of 23 years between events is hardly a blip on the financial modelling of the AFL or Super Rugby. An AFL spokesperson told Melbourne’s Herald Sun that “we are happy to work around their schedule, as this will be a fantastic event for the city, state and the country”, omitting to add this was only true so long as it didn’t happen too often.
The creation of room for the event in the summers of Australia and New Zealand has not been without scheduling compromises on cricket’s side. Cricket Australia has mapped out a mere four Test matches against India that summer and has no plans to add another two against another touring team, as has become customary. This means at least two capital cities will miss out on their annual Test, with Brisbane again likely to fall victim to the schedule, alongside the perennially undersung Hobart.
The irony of this would not have been lost on Tasmanian officials in attendance at the launch as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a reference to the high government cost of installing floodlights at Bellerive Oval. Federal and state government funding has been a major factor in many of the upgrades that will be seen at venues in 2015. In return for this outlay, there has been a measure of political jostling to the handing out of matches. The high profile India v Pakistan pool match on the second day of the tournament is a fixture often referred to as “more than a game”, but in the chambers of the South Australian government, it has been described as such for reasons less to do with border stoushes than marketing opportunities.
In the words of the SA Premier Jay Weatherill: “The government, through the South Australian Tourism Commission, had a specific strategy in bidding for a schedule that would guarantee the maximum exposure for Adelaide and South Australia. What has been announced today exactly matches that strategy because not only will India be playing their first match on the opening weekend of the tournament in Adelaide, but they will be based here for a week prior to that game playing warm-up matches, including one against Australia. It gives South Australia an outstanding opportunity to get significant leverage into India.”
So even on a day when cricket took a fair share of attention around Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the world, it was hard to escape the feeling that in 2015 it will be as much a pawn of footballing, corporate and government interests as a major player. Whether or not Houndmouth are still around in two years time remains to be seen. Either way, their drum kit will be in for more business as a result of the “RENTALS” label, just as the preferred cricket grounds of the 2015 World Cup have traded character for cash flow.
Daniel Brettig is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here
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Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
lo…tame wickets…
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
I was thinking to visit family in 2015 as well 
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
World Cup Final returns to Melbourne and Pakistan will return home early too unless they sort out 2 or 3 batting positions.
The bulk or 60% of the team will be the same that did so well in Windies
Hafeez's position in the ODI team is debatable imo. He is too inconsistent with the bat and not good enough to occupy a specialist position. can't have him in the team just as a part-time spinner (though he has done well in that department of late). imo it should be Afridi or Hafeez but not both. Need to find another specialist batsman.
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
Afridi wont be there in 2015. 
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
lolz cricket tu ho ga na inshahallah 
Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne
World Cup Final returns to Melbourne and Pakistan will return home early too unless they sort out 2 or 3 batting positions.
The bulk or 60% of the team will be the same that did so well in Windies
Hafeez's position in the ODI team is debatable imo. He is too inconsistent with the bat and not good enough to occupy a specialist position. can't have him in the team just as a part-time spinner (though he has done well in that department of late). imo it should be Afridi or Hafeez but not both. Need to find another specialist batsman.
yeah i already laid out my vision in some other threads
for a strategic balance Umar Akmal has to play as a keeper batsman in ODIs and T20s. His keeping is not bad and he can work more on it. The moment you bring a specialist keeper you disturb the balance because we have no keeper who can bat decently....and we end up wasting a spot. For test matches we need a specialist keeper but that is a different topic. My focus is on WC '15.
Afridi does not fit in the WC framework ... so i proposed Hafeez to become that lower order all-rounder that we are searching for a while. Abdul razaq is gone and Hammad Azam is unproven. Malik cannot bat outside subcontinent and he does not bowl regularly anymore. So it is Hafeez vs Afridi...well for last 18 months hafeez is bowling much better than afridi. Plus Hafeez success against left handers is becoming sort of legendary...and these days every team has 3-4 lefties...so it is a strategic imperative to have hafeez as a bowler. Afridi has been awfully inconsistent with the ball. Batting wise i will take Hafeez over Afridi any day.
Rest of our batting is extremely fragile outside subcontinent with an exception of misbah and jamshed. I was not super excited with our win in WI..wickets were just like india/pakistan and very slow and we still had to rely on misbah in every match to cross 200. That is not good....we saw what happened in SA and then in England in champions trophy.
We definitely need to check haris..the only player averaging above 50 in our first class. If he has true potential ... jamshed, misbah, haris and ahmad shezad will constituent the nucleus of our batting going forward. Hafeez can play better in the lower order.