India continued their brilliant record against Pakistan in the Women's T20 World Cup beating them by six wickets in Dubai. With this win, they also stayed alive in the tournament having lost to New Zealand by 58 runs in their opening game. Following this crushing loss, their net run rate took a massive hit and they needed to win big against Pakistan.
Bu strangely, they took the game till the 19th over to chase down 106 runs and this leaves India now with an improbable scenario of winning big against Sri Lanka and Australia. While Sri Lanka are the reigning Asia Cup champions, Australia won the T20 World Cup last year for the sixth time in history.
India will face Sri Lanka on October 9 and it seems to be their only chance to register a big win. Sri Lanka defeated India in the Asia Cup final a couple of months ago which was the last face-off between the two teams. Harmanpreet Kaur will have to ensure they just manage to win against Australia in their final league game as the defending champions are unlikely to go down by a huge margin.
Let us have a look at a few scenarios through which India will make it to the semifinal of the T20 World Cup
In any case, India will have to win both their remaining matches against Sri Lanka and Australia irrespective of the margin to stay in the hunt. Assuming, India will win both their matches, let us have a look at a few scenarios:
1. If India win both their matches, they will finish at six points in the group stage with three wins. Sri Lanka will get knocked out with three losses while New Zealand and Australia both have a chance to get to six points assuming that the Aussies beat New Zealand and both teams beat Pakistan and Sri Lanka in their respective fixtures. In this case, there will be a three-way tie on six points and two teams with better NRR will qualify for semifinals.
2. There is room for India to qualify with four points as well. Assume that India beats Sri Lanka but lose to Australia in their final league game. In this case, they will have to hope that New Zealand end up winning all their matches finishing on eight points and Australia lose to Pakistan as well. New Zealand will then qualify with 8 points while there will be a three-way tie between India, Australia and Pakistan and the NRR will come into the equation. The same case can happen with Australia winning all their matches finishing on 8 points and New Zealand lose to Sri Lanka or Pakistan ending on four points. This will again leave two or three teams including India and New Zealand on four points and net run-rate will come into play.
3. India can also qualify without NRR coming into play. Assuming that they win both their matches, they would need New Zealand to lose all three of their remaining matches against Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In this case, Australia and India will finish on six points and qualify for the knockouts of the World Cup.
