Group B (with South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Kenya, Canada).

Strengths: Their batting — in Brian Lara, Carl Hooper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul they boast world-class experience, backed up by the youthful promise of Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan, fresh from his first one-day century.

Weaknesses: Their bowling. Mervyn Dillon boasts more than 100 wickets in Tests and 99 in ODIs but there is little obvious quality queuing up behind him. Vasbert Drakes’s statistics looked good against Bangladesh — 12 one-day wickets at 6.5 apiece — but, aged 33, he has only just returned to the team after seven years in South Africa.

Key man: Lara — he remains the team’s prized wicket. Has not produced many fireworks recently — always a danger sign.

One-day form: A home win over New Zealand and a 4-3 series victory in India in November will have given them real confidence. Against the big guns, though, they have struggled. Last time they played South Africa — at home — early in 2001 they lost the one-day series 5-2. That came immediately after a 6-0 drubbing in Australia.

Past World Cup performances: West Indies won the first two finals in 1975 and 1979 before surprisingly losing the 1983 final to India. Since then, their results have declined, although they went close to surprising Australia in the 1996 semifinals. In 1999, despite the fine fast bowling of Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, they crashed out after the first round.

Prediction: Will struggle to reach the Super Sixes second round.—Reuters