ICC CWC 2019 – Pak Team’s Road Map to Semifinals

ICC ODI Cricket World Cup 2019 and Pakistani team’s prospects.

As per the format of the ICC CWC19 Pakistani team will be playing a total of nine matches in the tournament, before the decision of the four teams, which will be playing the semifinals.

According to the current rankings, our team is placed at sixth spot. And to enter the semifinals race, in the normal circumstances, we will have to win against all teams ranked 7th to 10th (BD, SL, WI and Afghanistan), plus the two of the five teams ranked from 1st to 5th positions i.e., England, India, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia.

This means that for our team’s qualification to the semifinals stage, we must win a minimum of six matches against the nine teams, we shall be playing, in the preliminary round.

However, going by the recent performances of our team, starting from September 2018, it looks that we can easily win against the teams of Sri Lanka and the West Indies and can also defeat with some extra efforts and share of luck, the teams of South Africa, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

This calculation leads to a situation where we further need a victory over one of the three teams of England, India, New Zealand and Australia.

Going by the current forms and reputation of these four teams we would be very lucky, if we beat New Zealand and enter the Semifinals.

Rest we should hope for the best, because in almost every high voltage ODI cricket match, generally the team which wins is the team which believes in the following maxim “You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win.”