Ireland's Victory

[Googly]

Yes I agree, in addition what has become obvious to me over the last few days is how strong Bangladesh and Ireland actually are. Bangladesh have a very good bowling attack.
Ed Joyce is a top batsman as well, a consummate professional.

[jimbo]

How many teams qualify from the group stages is it 3 or 4?

[foreignfield]

How many teams qualify from the group stages is it 3 or 4?

4

[jaybro]

Windies all over Pakistan here can't see the result going any other way @4-9 chasing 310 .....

Group B is wide open its not too crazy to think Zim and Ireland could both qualify for the quarters ??

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Damn it. WI beating Pakistan I don't think helps us...
All that does is create more of a log jam around the middle of the table, which makes it hard for us because a battle of NRR is a battle we can't win. And WI is going to win big here. For us to qualify we need to do it based on points... and for rain to be on our side; we're done for if Ire vs SA gets washed out or something, but conversely Zim vs Ind being washed out or UAE vs Ire being washed out would be good for us.

Hopefully I've done the maths right here... If the results go this way (given today's result, Pakistan is now our must win game instead of WI) we would qualify - the matches in bold are the ones we definitely need to go our way.

SA def Ind (SA 4pts)
WI def Zim (WI 4pts)
Ire def UAE (IRE 4pts)
SA def WI (SA 6pts)
Ind def UAE (IND 4pts)
Zim def Pak (ZIM 4pts)
SA def IRE (SA 8pts)
Pak def UAE (PAK 2pts)
Ind def WI (IND 6pts)
SA def Pak (SA 10pts)
Zim def Ire (ZIM 6pts)
Ind def Ire (IND 8pts)
SA def UAE (SA 12pts)
Ind def Zim (IND 10pts)
WI def UAE (WI 6pts)
Pak def Ire (PAK 4pts)

SA - 12 points
Ind - 10 points
WI - 6 points
Zim - 6 points
Ire - 4 points
Pak - 4 points
UAE - 0 points

[grant]

I still think we have what it takes to beat WI.
And probably Pak too.....

[brmtaylor.com admin]

I still think we have what it takes to beat WI.
And probably Pak too.....

If we beat Pak/WI/Ire then we'll progress for sure. But I rate all those games as close to 50/50 contests, which gives us about a 12.5% of us winning all three. And even winning two is only a 25% chance.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yeah, things have become more unpredictable. And both Pak and WI will now be reinvigorated to get the job done. Gets more difficult to catch them off guard. Also, does anyone have confidence of us winning anything while batting first? When was the last time we won something convincingly batting first? Winning the toss becomes extremely important...

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Yeah, things have become more unpredictable. And both Pak and WI will now be reinvigorated to get the job done. Gets more difficult to catch them off guard. Also, does anyone have confidence of us winning anything while batting first? When was the last time we won something convincingly batting first? Winning the toss becomes extremely important...

I'm not overly confident we'd post a good score batting first either. The script would be:

- bat cautiously for first 10 (and still lose 1 or 2 wickets) - 2/35 after 10
- try and consolidate for the next 10 (still lose a wicket) - 3/65 after 20
- try and up the rate and collapse - 8/170 after 40
- somehow manage to consolidate again - 220 after 50

And a sub 250 score will scare nobody.

At least bowling first, we could get some Chatara magic and if all went well we could be chasing 250.

[tawac]

I reckon the best result for us in the IREvUAE game would be a UAE win. Question is can they pull it of. One thing is true in this world cup. It's unpredictable, I mean who thought Bang would take points of the Assuies