Why not?
Look at it this way - imagine the top 2 teams have beaten all the other teams in the competition, except one of them (obviously) lost to the other, and the other lost to Afghanistan. So they finish on the same number of points. Who deserves to finish in the #1 position? The team who beat all the other teams but lost to the second best team, or the team that lost a game to the weakest team in the tournament?
Your example is reasonable when using the best teams in competition, but would only apply for semi-final seeding. The more important example would be for teams vying for the last semi-final slot. Presumably these teams would have multiple losses, not just against each other. My issue is that, knowing that NRR is an important tie-breaker, teams may be forced to play an entirely different game. That last game between Pakiston and Bangladesh might result in Pakistan having to employ a T-20 type strategy in order to improve their standing. Is that what we want?
Not too bothered by that to be honest - by doing so, they lower their chances of winning the game (probably), though in a sense it is “risk free” (if a close victory isn’t enough anyway). But it doesn’t fundamentally change the game. For me, the more important factor is that they know what they have to do, whereas if they were potentially going to finish level on points with the team they played first up, they didn’t know at that time that that game was effectively worth 3 points, not 2.
Pakistan currently showing England exactly how it should be done when chasing a modest total. Superb performance by them. New Zealand look a bit out of ideas.
Pakistan to win it all and party like its 1992 all over again.
I left towads the end of the NZ innings but at that time I thought the wicket had become rather placid snd I expected Pakistan to get the small number of runs easily. That they didn’t do it all that easily is a bit of a surprise.
Now it’s getting exciting! I just need India to stay out of the mess and get a victory tomorrow. Why do I get the feeling Windies will play their best game and win tomorrow?
No, you are not.
I’m talking the strategy ENG need to win the WC, you are talking whether they make the semis and finish 3rd or 4th based on NRR.
ENG first choice line-up is the first team to deliberately set out to breach the technical gap between batting in T20s vs ODIs.
That four guys getting 60 off 50 anywhere in the order is a better team result than two guys at the top getting 100 off 100.
The strategy difference between ENG and AUS is shown in the selection of Khawaja. He’s there specifically if Finch/Warner get broken up early. If they do he is a pretty handy conventional proxy opener to get the base established. If Finch/Warner bat for 25-30 overs (as they consistently have) then Usman is superfluous and should bat after Carey at #7, if not lower. But he bats at #3 so that he’s in reasonable form when (and it’s probably when) Warner/Finch cop a jaffa in the first over of a final.
There’s a guy playing in the UK for Australia A at the moment, Matthew Wade. He is in the midst of an astonishing purple patch of batting form for the past 18 months (for Aust A 155 from 71 balls against Derbyshire and 117 from 67 against Northamptonshire plus 592 runs @ 42 in BBL08 and 1021 runs @ 60 in the Sheffield Shield) England would pick Wade over Khawaja every time. That’s their ODI model, Wade is AUS’s Eoin Morgan.
A curiosity is that the ENG model is way better suited if the WC was being played in India i.e. where are competent batting team can expect to bat 50 overs going hard and losing no more than 6 wickets. England (and perhaps NZ) is the one location where you cannot bank on flat, hard, lifeless roads as the platform to bludgeon any attack for 400 plus.
“Old” ENG with Cook, Bell and Trott at the top of the order might have beaten AUS on that Lords deck.
“New” ENG can chase 350 on a road but not 250 on a typical county deck.
ENG are still presumptive favourites to win IMHO if the semis and finals are played on roads and they have some form setting/chasing 350 plus as they have for the past four years against all comers. ENG’s ODI strategy is that target can be done without blinking even from losing 2 in the first over. But if they get to the semi scratching out 220 and defending they will have lost faith in their own strategy.
No, I’m not talking about NRR at all. I’m talking of the decisive factor as stated "As number of wins is the first tie-breaker in the case of teams being tied on points, ".
I never mentioned NRR.
India starting slowly. I hope the Windies pull off a massive upset just for the hell of it.
And I see Rohit has gone, so it is a start I guess. Trying to digest all the cricket (including highlights) that I have seen in the past week, I am starting to wonder if a few teams are as good as I imagined. Or as bad.
The two Kiwi all rounders handled Pakistan rather easily when the wicket matured in yesterdays game and then won the game but they should have done it more easily. The ball that got Williamson was a beauty but there was also a lot of rubbish.
If India go down in today’s game the whole thing turns into a raffle.
I think every team has serious flaws that can be glossed over by their better performers, should they put together good innings or devastating spells with the ball. This is especially true for some teams who have been hit by injury - the step down from some of the first choice players to the next level has been revealed to be quite steep.
The consequence is a very interesting tournament with plenty of scope for intrigue. Contrary to my earlier fears at the start of the tournament, the lack of a couple of clear stand out sides means that there are likely to be fewer dead rubbers than I initially thought.
In such an environment, having a “big match temperament”, “knowing how to win”, whichever cliche you want to reach for, is likely to be a difference maker. England’s high variance approach is difficult to beat when it comes off, but they’ve not won anything of significance and that’s why I still think India (with Australia coming up on the rails) are a better chance than England to win the tournament.
'The issue with using ‘Number of wins’ as the first tie-break, is that in England it rains - often. When a game is washed out or abandoned, your NRR is not affected. But you don’t get credited with a win. You get assessed as ‘Not winning’ - when you never had a chance to win at all.
Example - Sri Lanka have had 2 washouts, from 6 games. 2 wins, 2 losses, 2 washouts. They have 6 points. If they win the next game, they will have 8 points - the same as England (from the same number of games). But England will be ahead because they have won 4 games while Sri Lanka will only have won 3. (Or do you get credited with half-a-win for a washout?).
Seems unfair to me.
I think both teams get one point.
Yes, but not half a win. I think the point made by Wallaby is a fair one, which is why I would scrap the “wins” tiebreaker and go straight to NRR.
Good point, but I can see difficulties with both sides of the argument. JJ has put across they should be giving credence to teams that have faced each other and one beaten the other, but that could be several weeks ago and team form fluctuates on different pitches, players lose form and get injured etc. Similarly the argument about NRR has the added difficulty of teams beating up on weak teams and perhaps getting a flat track as opposed to other teams playing in swinging pitches.
I have no answer.
However if I could return to the game last night (Ind versus WI) can someone clarify a few things for me? From what I saw the pitch held few problems and Kohli made batting look really easy (as he normally does). The WI attack looked rather innocuous and I thought the pitch got easier to play on as the game wore on. I was surprised to wake up and find that India had won. Well, maybe not surprised as it is not a strong WI side but unless India bowled surperbly it was an achievable total. Perhaps the pitch was a bit two paced but I couldn’t see it.
The remaining games will be interesting. England seem to have injury worries but are still a strong team. NZ, Australia and India look good but not one side has been dominant (India are unbeaten but not dominating).
Head on chopping block Australia and India in the final.
Shami, Bumrah and Kuldeep were fantastic with the ball is about the size of it. They were very economical, giving the Windies little to work with and got all the danger men in their line up out relatively cheaply. The WI batting line up is, in theory, highly dangerous, particularly if some of them get set - we all know about Gayle but, in addition, Pooran and Hetmyer in particular are both explosive players - but the bowling squashed them thoroughly.
It seems to me that teams with several decent all-rounders try to get as many into their line-up as possible. Is simply playing 5 pure bowlers, and maybe just 1 all-rounder (in case of a bowler getting injured) not a viable strategy? I can see the value in maximizing all-rounders for the T-20 version of the game, since it calls for far more aggressive batting.
In the case of India, I think they’d be better suited to keep both Shami and Kumar in their line-up after the latter is fit again. Maybe leave Pandya in as the only all-rounder and play with only 6 legitimate batsmen.
Don’t forget the pitch won’t necessarily affect NRR, that’s where the “N” comes in. Putting up 400 on a flat track against AFG, where they then reach 250 in reply, will not benefit your NRR as much as struggling to 260 on a grassy strip and then skittling the opposition for 99. Or at least, I believe that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Ultimately, if you agree that the point of the group stage is to find the four teams that have performed best overall in the course of the group games, NRR is the only thing to do that fairly (not that I am suggesting it should be used instead of points scored - clearly a team with more points should progress over a team with fewer, regardless of NRR - that eliminates the problem of a team with fewer wins overtaking one with some no results solely by virtue of spanking a weak team).
Sunday”s game between England and India is looking to be huge. A win by either I think practically guarantees knockout round entry. But an India win opens up that 4th spot for all 3 of its subcontinent neighbors.
ETA: perhaps this was already obvious to you all