The 2015 cricket World Cup will - more than any previous tournament - will be dominated by the batsmen. The playing conditions as much as the current cricketing zeitgeist point to an unprecedented flow of runs. And that weighting of bat over ball, in turn, suggests there may be a few surprises between the opener on Valentine’s Day and the final on March 29th. It’s a scenario that makes life tricky for anyone looking to predict the final winner.

Australia’s home advantage and South Africa’s all-round excellence put them at the head of the betting with the leading bookmaker betfair, but the character of the tournament more broadly looks set to be dominated by the big hitters. And that is an equation that may not necessarily favour the big two.

First and foremost, the nature of international cricket has evolved almost out of all recognition since the last World Cup. The impact of the IPL and The Big Bash has been to explode the conventional wisdoms of the game. Patience and accumulation have been replaced by explosive hitting and a batting mind-set focussed on destruction. As the steadily rising record for one day totals suggests, 50 over matches are not what they were.

As much as that cultural shift has altered the game, there are some very sound practical reasons for anticipating that bat will dominate ball in this, the 11th staging of the tournament. Firstly, the Kookaburra ball is far less apt to swing than the alternatives. For England in particular, and South Africa to a lesser degree, that simple fact is a heart-breaker. A Jimmy Anderson that’s denied swing offers only a pale imitation of his test match potency.

Compounding that handicap is the fact that five of the tournament’s knock-out games are to be played on drop-in pitches. Such pitches have historically shown themselves to be flatter, slower and generally less characterful than organic pitches. Like margarine compared to butter, they tend towards a flat and functional blandness. From game to game, and within the context of each confrontation, that can only be in the batsman’s favour.

Add in the one-day restrictions on short pitched bowling,and the test match pressure - not to say terror - invoked by the likes of Mitchell Johnson and Dale Steyn simply will not be replicated. And if the quick bowlers are blunted by this combination of conditions and commandments, the spinners are no better advantaged.

Indeed, the clamp down on bowling actions suggests the slower bowlers will be looking over their collective shoulder in a way not seen since South Africa's Paul - frog in a blender - Adams turned his arm. Saeed Ajmal is the latest to have fallen foul of the ICC, and in such a climate the doosra technique in particular is fast falling out of favour. This is inevitably more good news for the batters.

With so many explosive batting talents distributed around the 14 sides there is no guarantee that the marginal gains that the Australians and the South Africans are geared up to exploit ,in their bowling and fielding, will be decisive factors. One decisive innings per game is likely to settle matters - and as history has shown, there is no guarantee that those will always come from the likeliest sources. Whilst that should make for an eminently watchable tournament, it does make it that little bit harder for punters to know where to put their money.