As for the sides in this u-19 World cup, India and Bangladesh look to be the favourites for the tournament. The Pool A is tough with Pakistan, Bangladesh and New Zealand and Pool B got tough due to Australias own fault in the last u-19 world cup when they gave a highly disappointing performance and were relegated to the likes of Nepal and Scotland and lost to Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
Pool C looks well balanced with India(the title favourites) and Sri Lanka(the hosts). Pool D still isnt that easy as it looks. Nepal(remember?), they have beaten Pakistan, South Africa and Bangladesh previously in the last 2 u-19 world cups and missed out on promotion to the next stage twice only due to a poor run rate. They beat the other big team, but lost to England and England lost to the other big team making Nepal lose out due to a poor run-rate. Nepal, will be hoping to make it 3rd time lucky and their fans are very optimistic as I checked out few days ago and believe that they will beat England, who have struggled in the sub-continental conditions recently losing all 11 matches played against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Their coach, also thinks the same way -
http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/u19-worldcup/content/story/233842.html. Zimbabwe, have been badly hurt by their internal crisis, otherwise they have always been good at the u-19 level in the previous world cups and Ireland, the 4th team, they had a good performance in the last u-19 world cup having competitive matches against Australia and West Indies and came close to win the matches before finally losing by 6 runs to West Indies and scored a massive 293 against Australia before losing by 40 runs as they couldnt keep enough wickets in hand in a near-unbelieveable chase.
There is also a good chance that 4 sub-continental teams might fight it out in the semi-finals provided we have 5 sub-contient teams. India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh look like getting there and Nepal need only 1 massive upset in the quarter-finals to get there.