Steve Waugh, who has been known as one of the greatest leaders of Australia has also been an inspiration for a generation in Australia. He led the Australian team to the 1999 World Cup title and set up an incredible team for Ricky Ponting to take over. The rest, as they say, is history.

With the World Cup 2019 is less than a year away, the teams are trying to settle down with a perfect team and England, the hosts, are right up there amongst the favorites. Even the Aussie legend reckons that this is the team to beat and he also said that things are very well in their favor going into the World Cup.

In an interview with Cricket Australia, Steve said, ”I think that’s great if you’ve got confidence and belief, and that’s what they’ve got right now. The only thing, I guess, against England right now is that opposition will be studying the way they’re playing. They’ll be analyzing every moment so they’ll have much better game plans against England going forward. That will be their challenge, how to stay that one step in front.”

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He further added, “Everything’s in their favor. You always say you want to peak and get momentum into a tournament, but there’s nothing wrong with having momentum in the first game either.”

Interestingly, Waugh also gave a priceless compliment to the English ODI squad as he envies with Eoin Morgan for his position right now. He also predicted that the management will not be looking to tinker with the squad for the big tournament.

Talking about the English squad further, Waugh said, “If I was in their shoes if you asked me which [team] I’d like to be captaining right now, I’d like to be captaining the England one-day side. Even if it’s not your best side, there are still seven or eight players there who are going to be in your best team and they’ve lost a lot of cricket. So going into next year’s World Cup, our preparation is going to be disjointed. We are definitely not going to be one of the favorites going there.”