England have enjoyed a near-perfect start to their Women's T20 World Cup campaign, and yet even a narrow defeat to West Indies in their final group game could see them crash out. Here's how.
Three wins from three. Scotland seen off with half the overs to spare. England top of the group on both points and net run rate. Job done, you’d think.
As it turns out, not quite. England are currently halfway through their final group game against West Indies, and in fact, after their batting innings, any margin of defeat excluding a super over scenario in the game will see them crash out of the tournament in the group stage, despite their perfect start. (It’s worth stating the obvious here that if England win, they will go through on eight points as group winners, with South Africa in second place. It’s also worth stating that for the purposes of any below calculations, we’re assuming it’s a full 20-over game with no DLS shenanigans at play because that would be too complicated, and also, it’s the UAE.)
Still, this is the weirdness of net run rate, a tiebreaker where even a small defeat can lead to a big swing, and not all one-run defeats are equivalent: the actual totals at play matter too.
While England’s net run rate is currently better than West Indies, that is only the case by a small margin, so any defeat will see their net run rate fall below the Caribbean side. Also, after England's innings, only one of England or the West Indies can end up with a NRR bigger than South Africa's. Thus South Africa have qualified for the semi-finals.
What margin of defeat would see England stay ahead of West Indies?
England set West Indies 142 to win, despite a top order collapse which saw the slip to 34-3. The NRR margins are complicated by what happens if they win with a boundary and overshoot the target. Let’s deal with what happens if they score one more run than England first. Because England have made more than 133, all the West Indies have to do is win - as long as a Super Over doesn't come along and complicate things. If West Indies score two more runs than England, then they will progress no matter how quickly they chase the runs.
What about South Africa?
It was theoretically possible for England to lose and for both their and West Indies’ net run rate to stay above the Proteas before the first innings of the game. Using the word loosely, the most ‘likely’ way for this to happen was for both England and West Indies to make 194 and for West Indies to win in a super over. Then England and West Indies would have net run rates of 1.383 and 1.399 respectively. Given England only posted 141-7, South Africa have qualified for the semi-final regardless of the result.
Could you simplify that a bit?
All West Indies have to do after England's first innings is win the game in normal time.
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