Men's Hockey World Cup 2018: 5 favourites to win the title

#1 Australia

The indomitable Aussies will be the team to beat

Has there been a hockey tournament in conscious memory where the Kookaburras have not begun as the favourites - or joint-favourites at the very least?

Australia's Olympic hoodoo seems to defy logic - the world's most feared hockey team has, quite inexplicably, won just a single Olympic gold, which they managed to capture in 2004 when Barry Dancer's side beat the Dutch in the finals at Athens.

The Aussies have, however, won the Champions Trophy 15 times and will be aiming to win their third successive World Cup title when Colin Batch's boys begin their campaign against the Irish.

Batch himself was part of an indomitable Aussie side that first won the World Cup in 1986 but has been rather cautious when it comes to assessing his team's chances at Bhubaneswar, stressing that the Odisha World Cup will possibly be the most open edition of the competition ever.

The Aussies lost to Germany in the semifinals of the 2014 Champions Trophy just as they did in the semifinals of the London Olympics in 2012.

At Rio, the Aussies were beaten by Spain and Belgium in the pool stages too but these failures, apart, have had a dominant run over the last eight years or so.

With three Commonwealth Gold medals (2010, 2014, and 2018), two Champions Trophy gold medals (2016, 2018), in addition to the World Cup titles of 2010 and 2014, and the Hockey World League gold in Bhubaneswar last December, Australia will be the team to beat in the Odisha World Cup.