World Cup 2023: On Thursday, New Zealand cricket team has almost confirmed its place in the semi-finals by defeating Sri Lanka. But after New Zealand’s victory, the format of the World Cup has come under question. Actually, New Zealand has had to face defeat from big teams like India, Australia, Pakistan and South Africa in the World Cup. Despite this, the New Zealand team has managed to finish at number 4 in the points table due to better net run rate.
It is also reasonable to raise questions because when a team reaches the next round despite losing badly to big teams in the league stage itself, then the credibility of the tournament also comes under question. New Zealand started the World Cup campaign with a bang by defeating England by 9 wickets. But after this, New Zealand was successful in defeating only those teams which were below it in the ranking.
New Zealand’s losing streak started with the match played against India. Team India defeated New Zealand by 4 wickets while chasing the target of 274 runs. After this, the Australian team managed to defeat New Zealand by a margin of 5 runs. South Africa defeated New Zealand by 190 runs. Even the Pakistan team, which was performing very poorly in the tournament, defeated New Zealand.
Format in question
But along with defeating weaker teams, maintaining a better net run rate was also in New Zealand’s favor. New Zealand won by big margins against Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Netherlands and Sri Lanka. Because of this the net run rate of Netherlands became very high. New Zealand is currently at fourth position in the points table with 10 points and it is almost certain that it will play in the semi-finals.
If the teams of Pakistan and Afghanistan also succeed in winning their last matches, then they too will have 10 points equal to New Zealand. But in terms of net run rate, it is impossible for Pakistan and Afghanistan to beat New Zealand. For this reason, the question is being raised that what kind of format is this of the World Cup, in which a country makes it to the semi-finals by defeating weaker teams, whereas despite defeating bigger teams and getting equal points, a team is left out of the top 4. Have to stay.