IND vs SA: South Africa have finally advanced to the next stage of the ongoing World Cup 2023 after becoming the second team to qualify for the Semi-Finals. South Africa’s qualification came as Pakistan defeated New Zealand in the first game of the Sunday doubleheader on November 4.
With 12 points on board, South Africa are comfortably placed second in the ICC World Cup 2023 Points Table at the second spot with six victories in seven matches. Their only loss, so far, in the tournament came against Netherlands on October 17.
It is worth noting that none of Pakistan and New Zealand will be able to match South Africa’s 12 points at the end of the league stage of the World Cup 2023. The two aforementioned teams are currently at eight points with just one match remaining in their campaign. So the best they could get to is 10 points.
Afghanistan can still join South Africa at 12 points at the end of the league stage if they manage to win both of their remaining fixtures. But the problem for them is both of their upcoming matches are heavyweights (vs Australia and South Africa). Net Run Rate will be another challenge for them.
Pakistan rode on the back of a blazing century from the blade of Fakhar Zaman, who piled up 126 runs in just 81 deliveries. If it was not for his fantastic century, then Pakistan would have struggled to get par with the DLS score, which came into play after the second rain interruption.
Pakistan registered a DLS-manufactured win against New Zealand by 21 runs as against 401 runs scored by New Zealand in the first innings.
New Zealand, Pakistan’s World Cup 2023 Qualification Scenarios
New Zealand World Cup 2023 Qualification Scenarios: Pd: 8, Win:4, Loss: 4
The Kiwis have put themselves in a bothering position with four defeats on the bounce. They are currently placed fourth in the points table with 8 points from as many matches. Their campaign has one more game left and even if they manage to win it, it would not be enough for them to comfortably sail to the next phase of the World Cup 2023.
If New Zealand wins their last game and at the same time Afghanistan loses its last two matches and England defeats Pakistan. This permutation and combination would mean that even at 10 points, New Zealand will be in the World Cup 2023 semi-finals.
Even if New Zealand, Pakistan and Afghanistan win one game each in the tournament it would boil down to the net run rate as all the teams will be at 10 points. New Zealand has a slightly better net run rate than the other two teams, hence they can qualify easily.
Pakistan’s World Cup 2023 Qualification Scenarios: Pd: 8, Won: 4, Loss: 4
Pakistan’s best case to qualify for the World Cup 2023 semi-finals would be to defeat England in their last game and hope New Zealand and Afghanistan lose their remaining matches in the tournament. This way Pakistan will be through to the semi-finals without getting entangled in the net run rate race.
However, if New Zealand beats Sri Lanka by just one single run, then Pakistan will have to revisit their net run rate and they will have the responsibility to defeat England by more than 130 runs.
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