Explaining World Cup Semi-final Scenarios for All 5 Teams

Explaining World Cup Semi-final Scenarios for All Five Teams

India and South Africa have advanced to the 2023 Cricket World Cup semifinals. There are five teams competing for the final two positions.

(Cricket News) Here is how the qualification picture for the remaining countries in the competition looks, with South Africa and India having already advanced to the World Cup semifinals and Pakistan and Australia having won their respective World Cup matches on Saturday:

Australia (10 points): Needing to win one more match to guarantee a semi-final spot, the third-placed Kangaroos have two more ties to play. Bangladesh and Afghanistan will be their next opponents. They will have to rely on winning outcomes in other games if they lose both of their games.

New Zealand (8 points): Currently ranked fourth, the BlackCaps are out of options and must win their one and only final game against Sri Lanka. Though they would still need to expect Pakistan and Afghanistan to lose their remaining games, winning that match would not guarantee them a spot in the semifinals.

Should New Zealand lose, they will be dependent on the Netherlands, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka to lose their remaining matches, and by sizable percentages.

Pakistan (8 points): Currently ranked fifth, the Men in Green are in a scenario akin to that of New Zealand. They will need to win their remaining game against England, but they also need to win by a significant margin in order to improve their net run rate (0.036) over that of the Kiwis (0.398). They would hope that NZ, Afghanistan, Lanka, and the Netherlands would all lose by significant margins if they were to lose to the Three Lions.

Afghanistan (8 points): Currently ranked sixth, the Afghans’ only challenge is to win their remaining games against South Africa and Australia to guarantee their spot in the semifinals. However, they will have a formidable challenge, particularly while playing Australia, who are vying for a spot in the semifinals.

Afghanistan’s sole chance of survival would be for Pakistan and New Zealand to lose their respective remaining matches by significant margins if they were to lose one or both of the matches.

Netherlands (4 points): At the moment, the Dutch are ranked ninth. Although it seems unlikely, they would be expecting to win their remaining matches against England and India by enormous margins.

To increase their run-rate, New Zealand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka will ultimately need to lose their games by significant margins. Their race would be over after one more loss.