Robot picks debutants Afghanistan to win World Cup

Of all, a robot has picked first-timers Afghanistan to win the 2015 Cricket World Cup.

Afghanistan are 1000-1 in betting odds to win the tournament. They are clubbed with Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Sri Lanka in Pool A.

Earlier today, India thrashed Afghanistan by 153 runs at the Adelaide Oval in a warm-up match.

The prediction was made by University of Canterbury's robot, named Ikram, after viewing the 14 competing countries' flags.

After narrowing the field down to India, the West Indies, Scotland, New Zealand and Afghanistan, the robot decided that the debutants would be the winners.

Eduardo Sandoval, a University of Canterbury HITLab PhD student, has developed the robot's prediction software.

"Of course, this is very unlikely, but with cricket the outcome can always be unexpected," Sandoval was quoted as saying by nzherald.Co.Nz.

Sandoval said Paul the Octopus who made predictions for the 2010 Football World Cup, inspired him to test Ikram's powers of prediction.