England Stays In QF Contention! Is India In or Out?

You must thank England for making every match it played very close and exciting. It will be a tragedy if they bow out of the world cup. They were in dire straits when their match against West Indies threatened to go out of their reach at several points. Finally England prevailed and got WI all out for 225, 18 short of the England total. So, for the moment they stay in contention for a birth in quarter finals (QF).

There are many possibilities as who out of England, WI and Bangladesh makes it to QF. First let’s take a look at the Group B points table:

Group B - Standings

Rank	Teams	P	W	L	NR	T	Points	NRR
1	South Africa	5	4	1	0	0	8	+1.606
2	India	5	3	1	0	1	7	+0.768
3	England	6	3	2	0	1	7	+0.072
4	West Indies	5	3	2	0	0	6	+1.650
5	Bangladesh	5	3	2	0	0	6	-0.765
6	Ireland	5	1	4	0	0	2	-0.881
7	Netherland	5	0	5	0	0	0	-2.386

If Bangladesh manages to beat SA they will be through with clear 8 points and England will sail through only if India beat WI. If WI win England will be out as they have a poor net runrate. If Bangladesh loses which is the more likely eventuality England will qualify irrespective of Ind-WI result.

Some controversy is created by different reports saying India is not yet confirmed for QF birth. Well, due to Group B complications there evolved a mathematical possibility of India crashing out. If Bangladesh win against SA and WI beat India very heavily then only India may go out, but it is very unlikely. Even if the first case materializes the second one will be very hard to achieve, because Indian batsmen have scored big totals in every match though always falling short by 30-50 runs, and so it will be almost impossible for WI to win by big margins.

India is virtually in the knockout stage as announced here earlier or else where. But the problem is it needs just one match to get knocked out. The crux remains that India must regroup quickly and give inspired performance to still be favorites.

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