It is significant that the 1999 World Cup logo features a fast bowler in his follow through, because the bowlers and the white ball appear to be dominating the tournament. Scores of 250 or more should be normal in a competition like this, as the world's best batsmen and bowlers battle. But the reality is that in this World Cup, scores are much lower than in previous editions.India have amassed the two biggest scores - 373 for six and 329 for two against Sri Lanka and Kenya respectively. The next biggest score is 275 for eight by Pakistan against Australia and 261 for six by Pakistan against Scotland.Many other encounters have produced low teams scores - the lowest of course being the 68 by the Scots.With the exception of the odd games - like the two India games - run targets have been a lot lower than expected with the faster bowlers exploiting the pitches that have given them early assistance. At this time of the year when moisture content in the pitches is higher than normal, the white ball hasalso given the bowlers an unfair advantage and made life difficult for top order batsmen.Wasim Akram has said, "the English white Duke appears much to be much harder than the traditional Kookaburra ball used in Australia." The extra layer of lacquer on the ball has aided the bowlers by allowing the ball to swing more in the air. The current conditions have allowed the quality fast bowlers to excel, but also some average swing and seam bowlers have looked good while the batsmen who dominated the 1996 World Cup have struggled.With the exception of Sachin Tendulkar who scored a super 140 not out against lowly Kenya and then Rahul Dravid (two centuries) and Saurav Ganguly, many top order batsmen like Aravinda de Silva, Brian Lara, Sanath Jayasuriya and Saeed Anwar have failed to impress.Even Nathan Astle, Adam Gilchrist - his innings against Bangladesh notwithstanding - have also struggled. It is batsmen like Graeme Hick, who bats at No. 3, Yousuf Youhanna, Jimmy Adams and Andy Flower who bat furtherdown the order, who have dominated.The new ball bowlers who are getting wickets at under 15 runs apiece include Courtney Walsh, Geoff Allott, Reon King, Abdul Razzaq and Allan Donald. Muttiah Muralitharan, an outstanding spin bowler is enjoying the bigger seam on that is helping the ball to grip and spin.In some matches, however, the older ball is showing a lot of reverse swing in the final overs and the Pakistanis who manage to exploit these conditions better than anyone, did so in beating Australia.While the white ball appears to be dominating many of the games, it is also being talked about by the players and commentators for another reason. In the first 16 matches, there were 443 wides bowled, averaging 28 wides per match. Even after that, the number of wides has not dropped much.Some bowlers are struggling to control the ball, and with umpires being very tough on the balls going down the leg side and balls that pitch outside the off stump and move further away towards the first slip teams arebeing severely penalised. Scotland, who conceded a World Cup equalling record of 59 extras which included 33 wides, had to bowl an extra seven overs to Pakistan that allowed Pakistan to most an even more formidable score.Many teams are bowling an average of four to five overs extra which is even affecting the end result, as it showed in the India-Zimbabwe match.I hope for the sake of the tournament and the wonderful spectacle it should provide, the weather warms up, the pitches dry, the white ball loses its effectiveness and there is a return to form of some of the world's master batsmen.y