Australia takes on the West Indies today in the opening Super Eight fixture and the World Cup is truly underway now. Brian Lara is keyed up for his team’s key clash against the reigning champions and today’s performance from the Aussies will be the first indicator whether they still have the fire to complete their hat-trick.

The Aussie tactics over the years have been clear and they are known to target the main player of the opposition. But Brian Lara is not one to be disturbed by such announcements. He has seen it all in his 15-plus years of playing international cricket. “It is the thing that actually drives me - that the opposition is going to come after the so called key player,” said Lara referring to the Australian tactics.

Today’s match should be an interesting one since the Australian bowling and West Indian batting are both slightly under par! Australia is relying heavily on Glenn McGrath and Nathan Bracken and hoping others play their part while the West Indian batting depends on Lara, Chanderpaul and Gayle. Two of the three are out of form at last count!

Writing off the Windies, though, would be foolish. They are a determined and talented bunch and have recovered from a hiding at the hands of India in the warm-up game. And now, having seen India crumble out after that performance would have given them even greater confidence.

Australia has so far looked the part of being the World Champion. They have won all their matches convincingly and barring a spectacular loss of form, should win easily. For today’s match, though, they may need to start slightly circumspect considering the opposition is neither Scotland now Holland! It didn’t matter really even when the opposition was South Africa!

Ricky Ponting has begun the mental games in all earnest but Brian Lara is not biting yet. What the team strategies would be will depend largely on the pitch conditions but one does expect the West Indies to bowl first and make any use of the morning conditions possible.

After two weeks of lead-up, this is the real thing. Four weeks to go for a (new?) world champion to be crowned.