Six on the beach

Sir Garfield Sobers will signal the start of seven weeks of competition, featuring 16 teams and 51 matches. For the teams, as much as the spectators in the West Indies and beyond, it will be a test of endurance which will hopefully end in glory at the Kensington Oval in Barbados on April 28.

That famous old ground has been transformed from its wonderful, if rickety, former self with a splendid facelift, and like much of the £200 million redevelopment work undertaken ahead of the ninth edition of this tournament, the paint is almost dry and the scaffolding is coming down.

Across the nine host nations, from Guyana in South America to St Kitts, the tiny Leeward island which will host Scotland's group games, the Caribbean will just about be ready in time.

Much like the Athens Olympics, and the Fifa World Cup to come in South Africa, the naysayers have had a field day, predicting chaos as this clutch of small nations prepares for the mammoth logistical challenge of staging a sporting event of this magnitude.

Undoubtedly, there will be teething problems. When Chris Dehring, the chief executive of the organising committee, pointed out last week that all 16 teams had arrived without one of their 1,400 bags going missing, it provided a glimpse of the scrutiny the hosts are under and, perhaps, the expectation from some quarters that they will fail.

Yet grumbles, as there will be, about transport, hotels, and internet facilities, will swiftly be forgotten if the tournament delivers the goods. In that regard, it is vital the West Indies team rise to the occasion. Local enthusiasm, which the Caribbean has in abundance and which could make this a different and special event, is infectious. And every major sporting event needs the home side to prosper, particularly when they have invested so much hope and money in the project.

All of which will ensure that many cricket fans will be rooting for Brian Lara and his young side to start the tournament brightly against Pakistan on Tuesday. However, for Scottish supporters, both in St Kitts and back home, the real focus will come 24 hours later, when Craig Wright and his team face Australia at Warner Park in Basseterre.

There is nothing like getting the competition under way against the defending champions who, after five one-day international defeats in a row, will be determined to re-establish themselves as the premier outfit in this form of cricket.

There are those, however, who have suggested that the Scots, and the other non-Test playing nations like Ireland, the Netherlands, Bermuda and Canada, only serve to clutter up such events, prolonging proceedings unnecessarily for the genuine heavyweights of the game.

One of those is former West Indian paceman Michael Holding, who managed to raise the hackles of both former team-mates and the associate member countries with this juicy comment on the eve of the competition: "I do not believe the World Cup should go on for as long as it does and that is partly because there are far too many teams in the competition who are not good enough to be there."

Holding, now earning his living as a television commentator, should know better. This tournament may be two weeks too long, but that has more to do with a protracted "Super Eights" element - which pleases sponsors and broadcasters alike - than the participation of smaller nations in the initial group stages.

The International Cricket Council, who can be criticised for many things, deserve plaudits for the efforts they have made to encourage emerging nations to develop. If the likes of Holding had their way, Bangladesh would never have got Test status and Kenya would never have produced the shock of the tournament last time around by reaching the semi-finals in 2003.

Of course the odds are long against Scotland progressing from their group, given it features both turn to page three from page one the defending champions and South Africa, the side who recently knocked Australia off the top of the world rankings. But coach Peter Drinnen has made it clear his largely amateur team have not travelled to the Caribbean to play exhibition cricket.

Back in 1999, when Scotland made their World Cup debut, they did not manage to win a match. The expectation this time is that, given their ranking of 12th among the competing nations, they should beat the Netherlands. Beyond that may be dreamland, but the joy of the one-day game is that, just occasionally, shocks do happen.

If Drinnen's team can force Australia and South Africa into a genuine contest, all those months of intensive preparation - the best a Scotland team have enjoyed - will have been put to good use.

While the traditional powers may battle it out at the business end of the tournament, a World Cup should have those moments when, for instance, a 20-stone prison van driver from Bermuda, who happens to live above a curry house, deceives Kevin Pietersen with a bit of left-arm spin.

The well-upholstered Dwayne Leverock enjoyed his moment in the sun in a warm-up match against England last week, and who is to say Colin Smith, Scotland's wicket-keeping policeman, won't cop a moment in the spotlight for himself over the next fortnight, or Majid Haq, the young Paisley-born spinner who can bat a bit too, won't take a notable scalp or two.

Back in 1999 it was Gavin Hamilton's batting for Scotland which brought him to the world's attention, ultimately earning him the briefest of flirtations with the England Test side. He is back this time, joined by the ageless Dougie Brown, making his World Cup debut at a mere 37.

Asked what his ambition was in an eve-of-tournament questionnaire, the Warwickshire veteran replied - one presumes tongue-in-cheek - to "win the World Cup with Scotland". Since bookmakers are offering 1,000/1 on that happening, the wise money is going elsewhere.

Australia may still be favourites, but those recent one-day defeats to England and New Zealand, and the retirement of Shane Warne and absence through injury of Brett Lee, means there is no certainty they will become the first side to claim the title three times in a row.

It does look an open competition and, barring upsets in the preliminary skirmishes, the top eight nations in the world should end up battling it out during the meat of the tournament. Consistency, allied to good fortune with injuries, will be key given the length of the proceedings.

That doesn't bode particularly well for English hopes, which while raised with their one-day series win over Australia, may be dashed if their brittle batting line-up continues to be prone to spectacular collapses. The great imponderable, however, is the state of the pitches in the Caribbean. With most re-laid as part of the massive upgrading process, there is a belief they will play low and slow, perhaps favouring sides with multiple spin options rather than out-and-out pace.

And, if the emphasis is on defensive bowling to combat the threat of massive batting targets, it may favour sub-continent sides such as India and Sri Lanka ahead of more one-dimensional teams such as South Africa. Yet until play gets under way at all the grounds, no-one can be sure.

I believe the pitches will provide some of the most diverse conditions ever experienced in this tournament, which suggests the eventual winner will truly deserve the accolade as the best-equipped team in the world.

Forced into a prediction I'd plump for Sri Lanka to beat Australia in the final. And, of course, Scotland to win their first World Cup match. But most of all, like everyone else travelling to the West Indies, I want the event to be a success for the hosts. Which means a celebration of everything good about cricket in the Caribbean, which is all about atmosphere and attitude and little to do with whether everything runs like clockwork.