South Africa’s 190-run hammering of New Zealand has brought Pakistan back into World Cup semi-final contention – here are the net run rate scenarios required for Pakistan to overtake the Black Caps in their next game.

A race for the last four that had looked sewn up has been brought back to life by the Proteas’ dominant win today. New Zealand have now lost three games in a row, and while their net run rate had looked healthy enough for them to just need one more win to qualify, they are now within reach of Pakistan. New Zealand’s net run rate is 0.484, while Pakistan’s is -0.024.

Pakistan’s next game is against New Zealand, on Saturday, and just two points separate the teams. If Pakistan beat New Zealand, they will go into the final round of games level on points with the Black Caps. And it is now not out of the realms of possibility that Pakistan overtake their net run rate in that time too.

How can Pakistan overtake New Zealand on Net Run Rate?

To do so, Pakistan will need to win with roughly 15 overs to spare if batting second, or by around 84 runs if batting first. There is some flexibility in these numbers, dependent on the precise totals in the game. Essentially, if batting first, the more runs Pakistan score, the bigger their margin needs to be, and if batting second, the lower the target, the quicker the chase needs to be. If batting second, Pakistan can also give themselves more leeway by surpassing New Zealand’s total by more than one run, if the winning hit is a boundary. This also all assumes that the game is not rain-affected.

However, while overtaking New Zealand’s net run rate would be a boost for Pakistan, they can still qualify for the semi-finals even if they don’t do so in this game. Pakistan’s last group game is after New Zealand’s, so they will go into that match – against current table-proppers-up England – knowing exactly what they need to do to leapfrog whoever is above them.

Who else is in the mix?

Pakistan can’t catch India or South Africa, but all of the other teams are in reach. However, it’s still possible that five wins won’t be enough, since, even if Pakistan win both games, Afghanistan and Australia can join South Africa and India on six wins, if Afghanistan win all three games, against Netherlands, Australia and South Africa, and Australia beat Bangladesh and England.

Should that specific scenario not transpire, Pakistan would end up level on fourth on points with five wins, and it would come down to net run rate. Australia’s net run rate, at 0.970, might well be out of reach, while Pakistan would be confident of clearing Afghanistan’s -0.718 as it stands.

The other two teams able to reach five wins are Sri Lanka and Netherlands. Both have three games to play, and need three wins to get to 10 points. Sri Lanka play India, Bangladesh, and New Zealand, while Netherlands play Afghanistan, England and India. Each currently has a net run rate inferior to Pakistan’s, and in the case of Netherlands’ significantly so.

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