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England : Darren Gough
India : Sachin Tendulkar
Pakistan : Wasim Akram
Sri Lanka : Aravinda de Silva
Australia : Mark Waugh
South Africa : Shaun Pollock

Darren Gough - England
28 years old
Right-hand bat
Fast-medium bowler
Club: Yorkshire

At the moment Darren Gough is a star. His outstanding performances for England in the last year against Australia and South Africa show him to be that. To become a great player, the kind of fast bowler he wants to be acknowledged as, he still has a bit to do. The indications are that he will not rest until he has scaled that peak, or perished in the attempt.

``Goughy'', a big-hearted and straightforward Yorkshire lad, is England's principal banner-man in this World Cup. Hick's runs will be important, the way that Stewart launches the innings is not negligible, and a healed Thorpe is essential. But Gough will be the team's natural leader. If England are to prosper, they cannot do without Gough's wickets.

He takes them early, when there is shine on the ball, and catchers close to the bat, and he gets them late, when he darts yorkers into the base of the stumps with expert regularity. And, whether or not other bowlers are getting clattered about, he always wants to bowl. There is an innocence about Gough, to which people respond and he is bound to become a national figure during the competition.

He may achieve greatness, or not, in Test cricket. That is the only arena where greatness can be measured. Before then he can achieve wonderful things in the most important one-day competition England will take part in. It's an exciting prospect, and it's good to know that one man is not overawed.

Sachin Tendulkar - India
26 years old
Right-hand Bat
Medium bowler
Club: Bombay

The brilliant batsman from Bombay has already achieved so much that it seems a bit inadequate to say greatness beckons. He marched past that threshold a while ago. He is, beyond argument, the greatest batsman playing the game, as well as the highest-paid cricketer of all time. The only doubt about his talent is: how high the ceiling?

Is he, as some sober-minded judges are beginning to suggest, the greatest batsman since Bradman? And, if he is, does that make him the second finest player cricket has seen? He boasts a Test average of 54, and enjoys film-star status in a country that celebrates its cricketers more noisily than any other, but the people who have helped put him there expect him to bring back a World Cup.

No player comes to this tournament with weightier hopes upon him; nor is anybody more likely to come off spectacularly. This is a player whose time has come.

Wasim Akram - Pakistan
32 years old
Left-hand bat
Fast Bowler
Club: Pakistan International Airlines

It takes some believing that there has been a greater bowler of his kind than the Pakistan captain. Yorker, bouncer, slower ball; over the wicket, round the wicket, old ball or new, on pitches of every hue: his bag of tricks bulges. He has taken more Test wickets for Pakistan than any other bowler, and nobody exceeds his record in one-day internationals.

Nor does he lack incentive. Man of the match when Pakistan beat England in Melbourne seven years ago to win the World Cup, Wasim is taking his leave as an international cricketer in his adopted country, and he is bang on form. Only two months ago he took hat-tricks in consecutive Tests, as a reinvigorated Pakistan team won the inaugural Asian Test Championship.

Wasim spent a decade with Lancashire, and has toured here three times, so he knows English conditions. He is also familiar with Lord's, where he excelled in domestic cup finals. Now he has been restored to the captaincy, he is keen to emulate Imran Khan, who retired after the 1992 World Cup.

He is in the autumn of his years, the senior member of a team who oscillate between magnificence and banality. Led by Wasim, Pakistan enter the World Cup with plenty of experience. This brilliant bowler and powerful striker of the ball is a match-winner. He will not go quietly.

Aravinda de Silva - Sri Lanka
33 years old
Right-hand bat
Off-break bowler
Club: none

The cavalier cricket that Sri Lanka played in the last World Cup, which ended with them crowned as champions, was acclaimed by one and all. Their daring approach to innings-building was highlighted by the way that Aravinda stroked the delightful hundred that completed their victory in the final at Lahore, against Australia.

De Silva is a batsman handsome enough to stand alongside Tendulkar, Mark Waugh and Saeed Anwar of Pakistan. He drives beautifully through cover, and is a powerful puller of balls that are not necessarily short. He is one of the game's great pleasure-givers, and he wears his gifts modestly.

Sri Lanka need de Silva, not only for his batting, but also for the option he provides with his slow bowling. However important Jayasuriya and others, de Silva represents Sri Lanka's best hope of replicating their triumph of 1996.

Mark Waugh - Australia
33 years old
Right-hand bat
Medium bowler
Club: new south wales

If marks were awarded for ease of stroke, Mark Waugh would win any beauty contest for batsmen. Similarly, if umpires could grant runs according to whim, rather than the laws, they might easily double the value of his boundaries. For every person who lambasts the junior of the Waughs for his apparent indifference there are a dozen spectators simply delighted to watch him.

Batsmen of his class come along once in a generation and, when they do, the game is beholden to encourage them. His Test record, since making a hundred on debut against England, is excellent. His performances in one-day cricket, where he opens the batting, are almost equally fine. He may feel, however, that as the member of the family who does not have a World Cup medal, he has some ground to make up.

Steve, his brother, who captains the team, won his medal 12 years ago, as the new boy in a side who had become an international punchbag. That win, against England, gave Allan Border's team a measure of self-respect, and marked the first staging-post in the journey that has taken them to the top of the world. They will begin as second favourites, slightly behind South Africa.

Waugh is not only an opening batsman of productive elegance, he is a fieldsman of great ability, either in the slips, lurking at extra cover or midwicket, where he pulls down catches other men don't sniff. At the last World Cup, his off-spin was good enough to claim Tendulkar and Lara.

He is irked at suggestions that he lacks his brother's steel-eyed tenacity, and he is right. To play as Mark Waugh does takes real courage.

Shaun Pollock - South Africa
25 years old
Right-hand bat
Fast bowler
Club: Natal

No player has made as much progress in the last year as this all-rounder. As a bowler, he is deceptive, baffling batsmen with leg-cutters that jag off the pitch at 85mph. His batting has come on and, as captain, led South Africa to the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

That last honour gives a clue to where he is heading. He is clearly marked out as the next captain of the Test team, a team in which he will be one of the major players. Last winter, with Allan Donald, he blew away the West Indies, as South Africa won the series 5-0, and he made good runs down the order. If his bowling outweighs his batting then he is still a genuine all-rounder, improving with every match.

He was born to be a cricketer. His father, Peter, was the spearhead of the attack in the outstanding team of the 1960s who never grew to maturity. His uncle was Graeme Pollock, the left-handed batsman, whose gifts, along with those of Barry Richards, were largely denied to the world by South Africa's expulsion from the Test brotherhood. With that bloodline, Shaun's emergence as a player in his own right was inevitable. He has been fortunate. To join a team with a fast bowler as fine as Donald at the other end takes the weight off a young man. He joined the side at a good time, too. Hansie Cronje had taken over as captain, and Bob Woolmer's coaching brought a new dimension to the way teams prepared for internationals. But Pollock stood on his own feet, and is now walking confidently.

In his approach to the crease, and his almost adolescent arm action, he doesn't always look like a Test bowler. Nor does he appear to be that fast. Test batsmen tell a different story. Both Mark Taylor and Michael Atherton regard Pollock as an adversary no less awkward than Donald. Given South Africa's growing reputation, and their status as favourites, the World Cup is coming at the right time for Shaun Pollock.