A huge hundred something to watch out for at cricket World Cup

The cricket World Cup will be a far lesser tournament in four years time, when the number of Associate nations that take part are halved and the growth of cricket as a global sport takes a serious hit.

So for the last time for the foreseeable future 2015’s tournament is the chance to celebrate the supposed minnows in the water.

But while it’s completely possible that one or more of Ireland, Afghanistan, Scotland and the UAE (most likely the former two) spring a surprise on a Test-playing nation over the course of the tournament’s six weeks, there’s also a distinct danger that they wind up on the negative side of some colossal records.

For Scotland and UAE in particular this is a real worry. Neither have much experience, if any, of playing against the Full Members and both have some powerhouse sides to face during the group stage.

When India clash with the UAE on February 28 in Perth for instance, it’s not completely infeasible to ponder whether the record individual ODI score will be broken.

There have only been four double-centuries scored in ODI history, all of them by Indian batsmen. Rohit Sharma, who will open the batting for MS Dhoni’s side in Australia and New Zealand, has registered two of them.

Should his side bat first at the WACA, Ladbrokes’ offering of 5/6 that over 182.5 will be the highest individual tournament score will be in serious danger.

By the same token, over 403.5 as the highest team total, also at 5/6, looks certain to be passed, with Australia and England taking aim at Scotland and South Africa joining India in the UAE’s group.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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