No, if England and Australia both win all their remaining games they will be level on points and if NZ only drop a game to England they will be above. Aus nrr is a real millstone for them.
I’m watching a replay of the NZ- SL game, and I have to say that the NZ black and grey uniform is the sharpest looking cricket kit I’ve ever seen. I may need to buy the jersey.
Decent win by England over NZ just now, a few big hits from NZ towards the end could have got them over the line but good bowling by England meant they couldn’t do it.
So the big question now is, assuming the top 3 teams (Eng, NZ, Aus) all win their final games, what sort of margin of victory do Aus need to put up to give them a chance?
ETA: just had a look at this myself, and conveniently, the first numbers I tried gave a reasonable steer (if I’m right). It looks to me like if AUS bat first against AFG and score 200 in 20 overs, then bowl AFG out for 100 in 10 overs, that would just about bring their NRR for the tournament above 0 (648 runs scored from 76.3 overs = 8.493, minus 584 runs conceded from 80 overs = 8.486). That’s a pretty big margin of victory and still doesn’t come close to Eng’s current NRR of 0.547 (let alone NZ’s of 2.233), both of which can only go up if they win too, as posited. So much so that if I were Australia, I think I’d just focus on winning the game and hoping NZ or Eng slip up (or are washed out).
AUstralia also play first, so even if they manage to win by some outlandish amount, England will know what they need
Netherlands knock off Zimbabwe. Nice bounce back after being rolled over by Pakistan.
Wonder what percentage of the population of the Netherlands is aware that the national team is playing in this World Cup.
I have a Dutch friend who I have taken to a previous Netherlands international game when Ryan Ten Doeschate was playing. He had no idea they were in the cup, there’s no coverage at all.
Yes, the Dutch people I’ve spoken to had no idea that Netherlands even had a second-tier national cricket team.
Even though the cricket stadium where the Dutch national team plays and practices is in the same sports complex where one of them played hockey for twenty years. (And others played tennis in the same complex)
He thought they were just a club team. And certainly there were more spectators at his club games sometimes than for international matches.
I’m assuming that at least Namibia (for example) has a sizeable community that cares about cricket. Netherlands seems to have a team that is way, way better than any interest in the population would indicate.
I just had a horrible thought - if Australia and New Zealand both win tomorrow, and then England’s last match is washed out, England will be eliminated. Seems harsh, but (other than adding a reserve day for the final pool games) I can’t think of a good fix for this.
To be fair, if either of Australia or New Zealand’s games are washed out, an England win sees them through.
True. And harshest of all would probably be New Zealand’s game being washed out, in which case Aus and Eng would progress if they both won. Just one of those things I suppose. It would add a significant amount to the cost of hosting the tournament to implement reserve days for all of the final group matches. And in fact, to be totally fair you’d want a reserve day for every single match, which just gets silly.
So, as an exercise in ignorance, would it be possible to play double-header T20s? It seems like the bowlers can go MUCH longer than 4 overs in a day. Ditto for the batters/fielders. AIUI, most of these guys also play ODIs and/or Tests with much more than 40 overs a day on each side of the innings.
But I’m just a Yank neophyte, so what do I know? 
I don’t understand why every game in a World Cup wouldn’t have a rain date the following day. Even in the ODI World Cup. What costs are so difficult to manage?
In the sense of two games being played at the same venue the same day ie afternoon and evening) there are quite a few double headers.
In the sese of two games between the same teams one after the other, no.
That doesn’t fit well with tournament play, you’d need every “rubber” to be a double header and then the impact of some teams getting two wins whilst others getting two washouts would put an even more significant bias based on the luck of the cricketing gods.
I doubt there has been a “2nd leg” played when the first was washed out.
As to player fatigue, I would concur that should not be a limiting factor and in any case that’s why teams have reserves in their squads.
I think we’ve discussed this before, and it’s mainly the extra cost of staffing the venues for the extra days (almost doubling that element of the tournament costs), plus (perhaps more importantly) the difficulty it would cause for broadcasters. I’d imagine it would significantly lengthen the tournament as well is increasing the cost of putting it on.
So Australia beat Afghanistan - but only just, which means New Zealand definitely progress (as they beat Ireland comfortably). More relevant is Australia failed to significantly improve their NRR, so a win by England of any margin will see them through. A loss, tie, or washout will knock them out. Sri Lanka are already eliminated, as always it’s hard to say if that will have the effect of taking the edge off their performance, or alternatively if they will play better with no pressure. Bring it on!
Agree. I just feel that when you’re hosting a World Cup, you have to swallow those costs to maximize its legitimacy. I know many countries lose money when hosting the Olympics, for example. Sure, for your normal bilaterals, there’s a profit margin that’s important to preserve. But for a World Cup, it should be different.
Yeah. We’re aiming for a cricket competition, not a “Not being rained on” competition, and it’s worth some money to make sure we get that.
South Africa could be in the midst of an historic choke. Let’s see if they can pull through.
BTW: my actual prediction is that David Miller will push them over the line. But will be nervous times.
And down goes Miller to what might be the catch of the tournament!
Miller is gone!
SA require 44 off the last 4 with 4 wickets in hand.