Simply looking at the performance from all the teams, you could see that India is the team to beat in this tournament and it will be a surprise if they do not win, so no need for gut feelings for that 
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It is better to accept the fact that performance of the team counts rather than programming a win, if this is your theory that host countries win, historically the host country never won the World Cup historically and that trend was changed only in 2011 when India won the World Cup.
.It is better to accept the fact that performance of the team counts rather than programming a win, if this is your theory that host countries win, historically the host country never won the World Cup historically and that trend was changed only in 2011 when India won the World Cup.
Whatever you call it, but i am not going to argue with you on this (as i used to do previously:-[) and even with or without the conspiracy theories, the Indian team have come a long way and they are no doubt the best team in all departments. It's hard to compare them with any team at the moment.
To be very very honest, I think it will be unfair if Indians are not the champions this time. As JSRAW mentioned, a bad patch in knockout matches, can sometimes be very costly but hope they don't get that bad patches in the next two matches.
1 bad day or 1 bad hour and you are out so no team can take their opponent lightly and it applies to every semi finalist, including the host nation.