Team Lahore takes on Team Sydney in the final of The Cricketer's all-time city World Cup

SADAQUT ULLAH KHAN engaged in thorough analysis of 1,800 World Cup players from 450-plus cities around the globe to find out which cities would come out on top

We all know what happened in the recent World Cup. How could we forget?

But, did you know which city will be favourite to win an all-time World Cup if it was played between cities?  

The Cricketer engaged in thorough analysis of 1,800 World Cup players from 450-plus cities around the globe to find out.

Here’s what we discovered. 

Batting power

Colombo (90) and Harare (64) are the cities with most players to have appeared in World Cup squads. So naturally, they have made more runs than any other cities. But these are made at an average of 28.8 and 26.2 respectively.  

Sydney makes it to the top when we looked at the average of cities with more than 2,500 runs. 

It has 5,416 runs at an impressive average of 45.3. Notable performances include David Warner’s 647 runs at an average of 71 in the recently concluded tournament, 484 runs by Mark Waugh, and 436 runs by Michael Clarke at 80-plus averages. 

Another Australian city comes on second with 2,657 runs at 44.8. Launceston has produced batsmen like Ricky Ponting - the second highest runscorer in all World Cups - and David Boon.  

Cape Town is third with 4,501 runs at 44.2. You can expect that from a batting lineup of Gary Kirsten, Jacques Kallis, Jonathan Trott (England), Herschelle Gibbs, and Andy Flower (Zimbabwe).  

Sachin Tendulkar alone could have topped the list with 2,278 runs at an average of 56.9 but other Mumbai players didn’t help the cause. 

Bowler heavy

Glenn McGrath is to bowling what Tendulkar is to batting. The Australian holds pretty much every record, including the most wickets and best bowling figures in a World Cup. But one great bowler like McGrath (Dubbo) or Muralitharan (Kandy) isn’t really a testament to the talent coming out of a city.  

We have to look at bowling averages for cities with more than 75 wickets. 

And again, Sydney comes on top. It has 156 wickets at an average of 34.6. Michael Starc tops the list with 49 wickets at a stunning average of 14.1. It is the best average for any bowler in the history of World Cups. Nathan Bracken is fourth in the list of lowest bowling averages with 16 wickets taken at 16.1. Cummins and Gillespie are not far behind. 

Christchurch has probably produced more fast bowlers and fast bowling allrounders than any other cities. The list includes Sir Richard Hadlee, Shane Bond, Matt Henry, Ben Stokes, Geoff Allott, Chris Harris, and many more. No wonder it is second in the list with 179 wickets at an average of 34.6. 

Kingston is currently on third with 106 wickets at an average of 39.6. It has produced the bowling greats like Courtney Walsh and Michael Holding. The recent crop of players include Andre Russell and Sheldon Cottrell. 

Lahore vs Sydney

There were 31 cities in this list with 11 or more players. We analysed the best performances from these players in a particular tournament to see city has the best chances of winning.

Some cities were extremely potent in the batting department but the bowling lineup was not good enough to defend the totals. Others were impressive with ball in hand but the batting strength wasn’t there.  

We found the following eight teams with the most balanced line-ups. 

Auckland: Martin Guptill, Martin Crowe, Jimmy Neesham, Kyle Mills, Mark Greatbatch, Adam Parore, Andre Adam, Daniel Vettori, Leslie Stott, Martin Sneeded, Lockie Ferguson

Christchurch: Craig McMillan, Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming, Ben Stokes, Chris Harris, Lee Germon, Corey Anderson, Richard Hadlee, Matt Henry, Dylan Hadlee

Lahore: Babar Azam, Aamer Sohail, Mohammad Yousuf, Umar Akmal, Saleem Malik, Imran Khan, Abdul Razzaq, Kamran Akmal, Wasim Akram, Abdul Qadir

Sydney: David Warner, Alan Turner, Michael Clarke, Mark Waugh, Steve Smith, Steve Waugh, Allan Border, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Jason Gillespie

Colombo: Mahela Jayawardene, Roshan Mahanama, Russel Arnold, Aravinda de Silva, Angelo Mathews, Asanka Gurusinha, Chaminda Vaas, Thisara Perera, Farveez Maharoof, Dilhara Fernando

Melbourne: Glenn Maxwell, Brad Hodge, Graham Yallop, Dean Jones, Jeff Moss, Gary Cosier, Shane Warne, Adam Hollioake, Paul Reiffel, Rodney Hogg

Johannesburg: Quinton de Kock, Andrew Strauss, Graeme Smith, Grant Elliott, Matt Prior, Andrew Hall, Farhan Behardien, Johan Botha, Adrian Kuiper, Kagiso Rabada

Cape Town: Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jonathan Trott, Jacques Kallis, Andy Flower, JP Duminy, Tom Curran, Vernon Philander, Paul Adams, Omar Henry

After comparing the performances from these cities, we found that Auckland, Sydney, Lahore and Colombo would probably reach the semi-finals, with Lahore and Sydney making it to the finals because of extremely good bowling attacks. 

Team Lahore edges Team Sydney because of its arsenal. Both teams have great fast bowlers like Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Sarfraz (Lahore), and Starc, Gillespie, and Bracken (Sydney). However, Lahore has a clear advantage on slow or spinning wickets with Saqlain Mushtaq and Abdul Qadir in the playing 11. There are players like Abdul Razzaq, Imran Tahir and Wahab Riaz as backup.   

Sydney is slightly better in batting department with players like David Warner, Clarke, Steven Smith, Waugh Brothers, and Allan Border. But Lahore is not far behind with Babar Azam, Mohammad Yusaf, Amir Sohail, Saleem Malik, and Umar Akmal. Plus, they have more than handy batsmen in all-rounders like Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, and Abdul Razzaq.  

Also, Lahore has a proper wicketkeeper (Kamran Akmal) while Sydney will have to do with a makeshift option (David Warner).

But would be a close contest. Who knows, we might have another tie followed by another tied super over, and the winner getting picked by the number of boundaries.  

Naturally.

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