Twenty20 Points Table: Who will make it to the semis?

Group E current standings:

Team	Matches Played	Won	Lost	Points	Net Run Rate
South Africa	2	2	0	0	0.766
New Zealand	3	2	1	0	0.050
India	2	1	1	0	0.200

Remaining Match:India Vs South Africa

Yesterday's 18 runs victory over England, powered by Yuvi's 6-6-6-6-6-6 has made India's task much simpler now. To ensure a spot in the Twenty20 World Cup semi-final, Dhoni and his men need not bother about the net run rate now - a simple win over South Africa will do.

Let's look at the various possible scenarios in this group.

1. If South Africa wins, India will be knocked out. NZ & SA go through to the semis.
2. If India wins, India go through to the semi, for sure. But New Zealand and South Africa's fortunes will be a function of the margin of India's victory.

- If South Africa lose by about 30 runs, they will be out.
- If India chases, they will need to win with about 3 overs to spare to give New Zealand a spot in the semis.

(approx calculations: please allow a small margin for error, i am no mathematician :) )

For now, it's time to start gazing at the TV screen as i hope Sri Lanka will knock Australia out of the Twenty20 World Cup.

Net Run Rate Calculation Method for World Cup 2007

India has posted the highest total in the history of the Cricket World Cups and suddenly there is a lot of interest and discussion of the Net Run Rate calculations. Surprisingly, everyone seems to be not very sure about the procedure and after getting a couple of queries regarding the same, I thought it would make sense to do a post on the all important NRR.

Step 1:
Calculating net run rate for a single match. Let me use an actual case to explain - India.

India scored 191 against Bangladesh, batting first. (In such cases the team's full quota of overs will be considered and not the actual number of overs and balls they played.)

Bangladesh scored 192 in 48.3 overs

India's Net Run Rate for that match = (191 ÷ 50) - (192 ÷ 48.5) = ( - 0.14 )

Note ( see red above) : 48.3 overs in mathematical terms becomes 48.5 because 3 balls is actually half an over

Step 2:
Calculating net run rate for the entire Round 1 of the World Cup

= (Average runs scored per over in all the 3 matches by India) - (Average runs scored per over by Bangladesh, Bermuda and Sri Lanka against India)

Note: For teams getting bowled out, the entire quota of overs would be counted

Caution:
Averages of the net run rate of the matches may sometimes give the same answer, but not always.

******
Click here for an Explanation of the Twenty20 World Cup 2007 format - Super Eight and all