Well, they are $5 now.
And presumably further out now. 14/2.
This is the game I reckon - if England can get Taylor and Williamson before they’re going, we *should *breeze this. On the other hand, these are the guys who could knock off the bulk of it themselves.
Indeed. If we can can get them both cheaply, Pakistan’s hopes are looking up again!
From cricinfo: “threads a low nick, quite deliberately between keeper and slip!” - bollocks, unless the only slip in place is at second or third (which I suppose is possible) there’s no way that was exactly the intended angle of the shot. More likely it was meant to be wide of first slip.
Williamson run out backing up, off the merest deflection off Mark Wood’s hand in his follow through. 61/3.
Another run out - kamikaze stuff from NZ and Taylor goes.
69/4. If England can’t defend their total from here, they don’t deserve to be in the semis.
Indeed. Useful little partnership for the fifth wicket just broken, too - 123/5. Williamson was rather unlucky but at this stage of the tournament, we’ll certainly take it!
Stokes comes onto bowl, first ball, a loosener, is predictably ropey - but is clubbed by De Grandhomme to deep midwicket. It’s 129/6 now.
Looks like it’s going to be very unlikely that Pakistan is going to be able to overturn their NRR deficit, even if NZ were to collapse all out without further scoring (they would have to score something like 400 and bowl Bangladesh out for 90ish, according to the radio, and every run NZ score makes it worse).
EDIT: Does look like NZ are chasing a safe NRR score rather than the winning score now, which doesn’t make for exciting cricket.
I can’t say I blame NZ for batting for their NRR. If it were England in that position, i would be imploring them to do the same. This is the nature of the tournament format, unfortunately.
Pakistan getting thrashed by WI in the first game and getting a rain out v Sri Lanka, plus NZ getting a rain out against India - any one of those probably the difference. One their own fault, the other two…well, it was sadly predictable that someone would get screwed by the weather. Looks like it’s Pakistan, even if they could have helped themselves against WI rather more than they did.
Yeah, I feel for them but ultimately no team can say that it was really taken out of their hands. NZ were slightly fortunate to prevail in two close games and that’s the real difference.
All over - England win by 119 runs and go through. Australia and India have matches remaining (SA and SL respectively), the results of which will sort out who comes first and second, and thus set the semi final bracket. NZ should finish 4th - if it is mathematically possible for NZ to get knocked out, practically it is not, I would say.
You’re right, I overestimated the likelihood of the NRR equalising - apparently Pakistan would need to score 400 and then bowl Bangladesh out for 84.
Obviously Pakistan will bat if they win the toss, if they don’t I believe they are out immediately, which would probably become the answer to a future trivia question. The most entertaining game would occur if they do make it to 400, but it’s all incredibly unlikely.
I guess I’m not the most experienced cricket follower here, but the NRR tie-breaker looks even worse than when I first complained about it. My first thought that head-to-head should supercede NRR was based on the premise that it’s the World Cup, and games earlier in the tournament should be just as important as those that are later. The retort was that NRR actually tells us who is playing better, which is why it’s ahead of head-to-head. To me Pakistan has played better than both NZ and England (although England still deserves to be in since they’ll end up with more points). But Pakistan beat NZ, are playing better than NZ, and will still be left out due to NRR.
There isn’t an easy, obvious answer, to be honest. There are situations where head-to-head is bad, there are situations where NRR is terrible, there are certainly situations where “number of wins” is bad.
Why do you feel Pakistan have played better than England and NZ? They have (or will have) all played the same opponents (washouts excepted, which is unfortunate but inevitable - it’s not like any cricketing country is immune from them, plus a guaranteed point is sometimes a good outcome), and England (and potentially NZ) will end up with more points and a better NRR than Pakistan. Those are the indicators of “played better”. Sure, Pakistan beat both teams in their encounters, but they’ve lost to other teams.
This is just getting embarrassing. Woeful batting yet again.
Hate to harp on this, but first thing is that if Pakistan lose to Bangladesh on Friday, then they clearly don’t deserve to go through. But let’s assume they win comfortably (which might be at risk, due to their NRR problem and the desperate measures that will have to employ). The argument that NRR is a better measure falls apart when you take a look at Pakistan’s win versus NZ, which could ironically be the game that we point to when reviewing Pakistan’s demise. A game that they won very comfortably with 5 balls left and 6 wickets in hand…and got almost no NRR benefit. In retrospect, Pakistan will regret not chasing down the low score that NZ put up against them earlier. Perhaps they should have foreseen the potential points tie with NZ, and hastened their chase. But is that the point of the game? Aren’t teams trained to calibrate their batting aggression level to maximize their chance of winning? Teams don’t calibrate to maximize NRR. That would be a different goal and change the basic strategy. For example, you’d always bat first. Did Pakistan play better than NZ and England throughout the tournament? Hard to say. But we do know they beat them both pretty comfortably.
I wouldn’t say Pakistan beat England comfortably, England were three big hits away from chasing down their total. And as you say, while always in control against NZ it wasn’t a walk in the park for them. Conversely, they have been stuffed by Windies and India, and only scraped past Afghanistan.
I do agree with you that it’s unfortunate if teams change their tactics due to NRR considerations - we’ve already seen some of that with India the other day and NZ today, it tends to make for less exciting finishes to the game in progress, which is disappointing. As has been said there’s no ideal solution though taking everything into consideration, personally I prefer NRR as least worst but agree to disagree I guess.
Thanks. I finally got to see the Innings and thought the ground was very large and then the commentators started talking about its “generous proportions”.
Well that was disappointing.
NZ beat all the teams below them, can’t beat the teams above and so “best of the rest” is well earned.
Was toying with the possibility of the semis being ENGvAUS and INDvPAK but that’s all but mathematically impossible.
You can make a narrative that whomever of ENG, IND or AUS win that they are the best side in the tournament.
But it’s 1999 all over again.
Bugger the inventive, creative, explosive, exciting strategy of ENG that’s won 75% of ODIs in the past four years.
That ODIs are simply long playing T20s.
It’s get on a road, win the toss, have one of your top three score 100 from 100, nudge and noodle in the middle and with a bit of a tail end flurry, post 300 and defend it. NEXT!
Who was that guy saying ENG or IND are the only teams capable of scoring 400 plus?