Pallab Bhattacharya
The round-robin league stage of the World Cup cricket competition in England has reached the half way mark and the race for the semifinal spots has stiffened and widened, particularly after Sri Lanka’s 20-run upset victory over hosts England on Friday. India, New Zealand and Australia are virtually certain to enter the semifinal and the question as to which will the fourth team to qualify for that stage been made intriguing after Sri Lanka's triumph against England.
Had England defeated Sri Lanka, they would have joined five-time champion Australia at the top of the points table with ten points and made the semifinal line-up almost predictable. But that is not the case anymore.
The hosts could exit from the tournament as they face much tougher rivals in the next three matches—India, Australia and New Zealand. England have not won against these teams in the World Cup in the last 27 years. Sri Lanka went into the match against England as a struggling one-day side with just a lone win from five matches. Two of those five matches produced no result, giving them a point from each, as a result of which they were on the lower half of the table. But the win against England brought them up to the mid-table with six points from six matches, ahead of Bangladesh which have five points from as six outings.
Sri Lanka no doubt face an uphill battle but have enough games left to try and make something out of this campaign. And that needs to come soon. The chances of South Africa, ranked third from bottom of the points table, progressing to the semi-finals seem all but over after their narrow loss to New Zealand on Wednesday. While their bowlers have troubled the opposition in each of the previous three occasions, the batsmen have failed to give them enough runs to play with. That is why South Africa face a must-win match against Pakistan, placed second from bottom, on Saturday.
After producing contrasting results in their first two matches, Pakistan's performance has slipped in their last two games. While a batting failure handed them a 41-run defeat against Australia, lack of intensity and consistency in all the three departments resulted in an 89-run defeat against their arch-rivals, India.
Both South Africa and Pakistan have three points each but the latter has played a match less than the Proteas.
With three points, West Indies, having failed to replicate their success from the first game against Pakistan, need to win each of their remaining four matches, including against New Zealand on Saturday, to stay in contention for the semi-finals race. The senior West Indian players Chris Gayle and Andre Russell haven't produced any performance of note, putting the lesser experienced middle order under further pressure.
