India will go into next year's cricket World Cup in England as favorites as a result of their dominance of the Test and ODI formats in recent years, former opener Virender Sehwag has said.
The Virat Kohli-led side are currently top of the Test and ODI rankings and Sehwag reckons the two-time ODI world champions will be hard to stop at the 10-team world event.
The World Cup begins on May 30 next year and runs until July 14.
"The kind of ODI team we have, we are favorites to win the 2019 World Cup," Sehwag told the International Cricket Council's official website.
The former opener also backed India to do well on their overseas tours of England and Australia later this year and declared that the number one-ranked Test team are favorites to secure a first ever Test series win down under.
India were beaten 2-1 by South Africa in a three-match Test series earlier this year but they bounced back by recording dominant victories in the ODI and Twenty20 series that followed.
Sehwag insisted that India would be favorites for the four-Test series against Australia this winter even if Steve Smith and David Warner had not been banned for their involvement in a ball-tampering scandal.
"This team has the capability to win a Test series outside India, with the kind of bowling and batting we have. We just missed winning the Test series in South Africa, or else we could have created history," he said.
"It does not matter if [Smith and Warner] are with the [Australia] team or not. Even then, we will win," Sehwag added.
"In our days, we had [Javagal] Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and Ashish Nehra, but these four [bowlers] never played together. This team has lot more capability and can deliver in any conditions."
Australia are defending ODI world champions after their World Cup win on home soil in 2015 and are the most successful team in the history of the tournament with five wins
