India’s victory over Bangladesh by five runs in Adelaide brought them closer to qualifying for the men’s T20 World Cup semi-finals. On the other hand, Bangladesh and Pakistan’s chances were considerably hurt as a result of India’s victory. Take a look at the following to get an idea of what the future holds for the four teams in Group 2 that still have a legitimate shot at placing in the top two.
Bangladesh’s only chance of moving on is to win their last game and hope that South Africa only gets one point from their last two games. In this case, both Bangladesh and South Africa would have six points, but Bangladesh would win even though they would have a lower net run rate than South Africa. This is because Bangladesh would have three wins to South Africa’s two.
If South Africa gets to seven points, it’s likely that Bangladesh will be out of the competition because their NRR is too far behind India’s. Bangladesh’s net run rate won’t pass India’s until they beat Pakistan and Zimbabwe beats India. For this to happen, the difference between the winners of these two games must be more than 150 runs.
Pakistan will need to finish ahead of either India or South Africa if they want to move on to the next round with six points. They could win the tournament if South Africa only gets one point from their game against the Netherlands and Pakistan wins more games than South Africa.
Pakistan has a higher NRR than India, which is 0.765 at the moment. If India loses to Zimbabwe, Pakistan could move ahead of India in the rankings. For example, even if Pakistan scores 160 and wins each of their last two games by just one run, they will still finish ahead of India if Zimbabwe beats them by eight or more runs. This is because India will have a lower total (after scoring 160). But if India wins even one point in their last game, Pakistan will no longer be able to catch them.
Unless it rains, India will reach the semi-finals if they beat Zimbabwe. Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot score seven. Pakistan and South Africa can finish ahead of India if India loses their last game, Pakistan wins both their games, and South Africa loses to Pakistan but beats Netherlands.
South Africa has five points from three games, a 2.772 NRR, and two games left. They will finish in the top two if they win one of the two games and get seven points. If they lose both matches, they will only be in contention if Bangladesh vs. Pakistan is rained out and both teams finish on five points.
