Supun Abeysinghe
Following the yesterdays result in cricket world cup the tournament turned out to be an interesting one at least for a week ahead unless there is any boring washouts
First lets have a look at the semi final prospects of top four from here onAustralia 10 points – 3 matches left (2 within top 4)
New Zealand 9 points – 4 matches left (2 within top 4)
England 8 points – 3 matches left (All 3 within top 4)
Ind 7 points – 5 matches left (1 within top 4)
Top 4 teams – Total points so far – 34
Therefore there are 11 games left for the top 4 with 7 matches with others and 4 matches each other.
Lets look at the worst case scenario for “Teams in the bottom half of the point table (Bottom 6)”. i.e “Top 4 will” continue to win all games there from here on against “Bottom 6″& end up getting points with narrowest gap among them
This will give 22 more points to the top 4 and it will sum up to = 34+22 = 56
Points per team with narrowest gap among top 4 (which minimizes others entering in) = 56/4 = 14
Here England will need to win all remaining 3 to reach 14
However there is no way all 4 teams can have 14 equal points!!. (Even accounting possibility of “No result/Tie” games within top 4 teams where they wont loose points) . England needed to win all three matches to reach 14 points. The other match left between Top 4 is Australia vs New Zealnd. Win, loose or no result will equal their points Where Australia vs New Zealand all 4 teams cant get 14 at the end. i.e One team will end up with 13 points & other with 15 . On the other hand None of the “Bottom 6” can make it to 14 or even 13.
Lets look at the Teams in the bottom half of the point table semi final prospectsMaximum points team can haveSri Lanka- 12
West Indies – 11
Bangladesh or Pakistan – 11 (Only one can get it while other will have the end of the road, unless end up no result in their game where they could get 10 each)
WI, BAN or PAK will need to win all 3 where as SL need at least two wins with huge net run rate while expecting ‘Upsets’ , ‘ No results/Tie’ or England defeats at least two of their last three games in first round.
By the way 10 points would not assure a semi final spot unless the tournament is wide open with few more Upset wins/ no results over top 4 team at this stage.
Let see how the team will fare during next few days.
For us to go through to semis with 10 points , England basically need to lose all 3 of their matches .The way I see it , the countries who will be fighting for the last semi final spot are England , Sri Lanka and Pakistan .However if England manage to win just 1 match at least of the next 3 , they would end up with 10 points and would go through to semis even if sri lanka ends on 10 because of their higher net run rate , its almost impossible for us to improve our NRR drastically in just 2 more wins .This is how I see things going :
AFG- knocked out already
SA – already out of the WC- can only end up(max) on 9 points
WI- can end up with 11 points .However will most likely lose to IND and NZ and be knocked out
PAK-can get a max of 11 points .their 4 matches left are SA , NZ , AFG and BAN. However would most likely lose to NZ and be knocked out .But its not impossible for them to win all 4.
BAN- can end up with a max of 11 points .Next matches are AFG , IND and PAK .Would most likely lose to IND at least and be knocked out.
The top 4 – Semi Final spots
IND- currently on 7 points .but has a few easy matches coming up and would most certainly be through to semis and would finish 1st most likely.
NZ- currently on 9 points .Has 4 matches left against WI , PAK , ENG and AUS .would most likely win at least against WI and PAK and would end up in 2nd place most likely .
AUS- currently on 10 points .Has 3 matches left against ENG, NZ and SA .would most probably end up in 2nd place .
So race is basically for the 4th spot in the top 4 .And the eay I see it the teams in contention for it are ENG , SL and PAK .
If ENG win 2 of their matches against AUS , IND and NZ ,they will end up on 12 points they will certainly go through to the semis because the max SL can get is 12 ( eng will definitely have a better NRR) and what PAK can get is 11 .
So for SL to go through to semis we will need to beat SA , WI and IND and also hope that ENG loses at least 2 matches or 1 loss and 1 washed out game .
For us to go through to semis with 10 points is EXTREMELY unlikely due to the fact that 10 points means we have lost 1 match and our NRR would have taken a blow and it would certainly be less than ENG if they end up winning just 1 match and ends on 10 points .So basically for us to go through to semis we need to hope that ENG lose all 3 of their next matches and that PAK loses at least 1 match of their next 4 .
This is a more realistic analysis .
@Cric Guru: Good analysis. Inclusion of Jason Roy makes England much more stronger so England may win at least one out of their last 3 matches. A win against West Indies will almost seals a spot for New Zealand in semi-finals. So let’s cheer for West Indies against New Zealand today.