In the small hours of this morning UK time Australia hammered Namibia at the T20 World Cup, a victory that ensures their progress to the next stage of the competition. England have Oman and Namibia to play and need to win both games, while Australia’s match against Scotland could decide which of England and Scotland qualify if England manage that. This post looks at the possibilities in more detail.
THE NET RUN RATE SITUATION
If England and Scotland both end on five points the fact that the match between the two was a washout means that it if Australia as would be expected beat Scotland (I would NEVER advocate that a side actually seek to lose a match – Brian Rose as Somerset skipper in the late 1970s was quite rightly hammered for doing exactly that to exploit a badly thought through qualifying system) it will be a matter of the margin by which they do so. While deliberately losing would clearly be wrong, if Australia find themselves chasing and know that completing the chase within a certain number of overs means England get through rather than Scotland then they would be perfectly justified in ensuring they take long enough over the chase to let Scotland qualify – I would expect England to do the same if they had Australia’s fate in their own hands. Also I would say that no one could object to Australia choosing to rest some of their big names for this match. Deliberately setting out to lose the match would be unacceptable, but deciding that one does not need to strain every nerve and sinew when one has already qualified is another matter entirely.
USA v INDIA SO FAR
Today’s match is between the United States of America and India. The USA need a win from either this match or their final match against Ireland to be sure of qualifying. USA were restricted to 110-8 from their 20 overs, with Arshdeep Singh recording figures of 4-0-9-4 for India. However, Saurabh Netravalkar, himself born in India before moving to the USA, has shaken things up early in the Indian innings – he got Virat Kohli for a golden duck, and has just added the wicket of Indian skipper Rohit Sharma. As I type this India are 13-2 in the fourth over, and have work to do.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
aspiblog 