The numbers crunched...

Great time to be an Indian! It’s the cricket world cup being played in India and our very own team has not lost a single match till now!!! I know my profile states that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in this English sport which is a fetish for every single Indian who I know of…. But well…. I AM an Indian.

So the calculations go like this:

Group A: Australia seem leaders with 3 more matches to go, two of which are against Canada and Kenya – two associate teams who have shown absolutely no interest in putting up a good performance. But the rankings in this group and hence the possibility of playing a “strong” or “weak” team from Group B is still anyone’s guess. If other results go as per plan, two matches: New Zealand (@ 8 points) vs Sri Lanka (@7 points) on 18^th March and Australia (@9 points) vs Pakistan (@8 points) on 19^th March will decide the entire group. (The points have been taken assuming no upset results in that group since these 4 have to play against either of Kenya, Zimbabwe or Canada till then.) So well…..forget everything else and wait for 18^th!

Group B: Now this is a group in which apart from India, no one seems to have a confirmed place in the QF….we should thank the wonderful Irish team for this confusion which is now to follow…..England have to play Bangladesh and West Indies…West Indies play Ireland, England and India…South Africa play India, Ireland and Bangladesh…Ireland play WI, SA & Netherlands…India of course play SA and WI. Assuming all was normal and Ireland was behaving itself, the QF should have had India, SA, England and WI not necessarily in that order. Unfortunately, with Ireland playing the way they are, they will definitely defeat the Dutch and they hold a very good chance of putting one up against the WI or SA..if they pull one of these, they will end up with 6 points and if India manage to defeat the team (out of WI / SA) who they defeat, Ireland would actually reach the semis ahead of that poor test playing nation. Of course, I am assuming that England will defeat Bangladesh which is a big assumption knowing the health problems of England and the fact that the Bangladeshi team will be itching to prove themselves as a test playing nation…..

I have a thousand more nos going on in my head and have not even considered the NRR to decide who goes in…..but well, I am happy that India is safe and can finally let Ashwin play. I am sure Piyush Chawla will not mind that now since he can go home happy that he single handedly got India into the QF’s (hope you understand that this is a Euphemism)……