World Cup scenarios: England still hold slender chance of making the semi-finals

England suffered their fourth defeat in five matches at the Cricket World Cup when they went down to Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on Thursday. Sri Lanka’s eight-wicket win at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium significantly hurt the defending champions’ hopes of making the next stage.

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England decided to bat first and suffered a baffling batting implosion to be bundled out for a paltry 156 runs, courtesy the five wickets shared between Angelo Mathews (2/14) and Lahiru Kumara (3/35).

Despite losing a couple of early wickets, Sri Lanka confidently closed the match out as Pathum Nissanka (77 off 83 balls) and Sadeera Samarawickrama (65 off 54 balls) led the process with an unbroken 137-run stand for the third wicket.

With just two points from five matches, England still have a mathematical chance to make it to the last-four, while the Islanders, who now have four points, can make it with equally strong performances in the remaining four matches.

The format of the 10-team World Cup has each team playing nine matches before the semi-finals kick in. It means England still have a shot at making the top four but things are not in their hands completely. Maybe more importantly, England need a massive overhaul to pick up wins of their own considering how poor they’ve been.

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How England can qualify for the World Cup semi-finals provided they win all their four remaining matches against India (29 October), Australia (4 November), Netherlands (8 November) and Pakistan (11 November):

– New Zealand lose their remaining four matches (vs Australia, South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and remain on eight points

– India win three of their four games against Sri Lanka, South Africa, Netherlands and lose only to England. Additionally, South Africa should beat all teams they have next, Pakistan, New Zealand and Afghanistan, except India. In that case, India (on 16 points) and South Africa (14 points) will be the top two teams

– Australia defeat New Zealand but lose their other matches – versus England, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Afghanistan should also beat Netherlands and Australia. In this scenarios, Australia and Afghanistan will both be on eight points

– Another way to ensure two more semi-final contenders finish on eight points is if Sri Lanka beat New Zealand and Afghanistan (and lose to India and Bangladesh) while Pakistan beat Bangladesh and New Zealand, thereby losing to England and South Africa.

– If all these results work out this way, England will be on 10 points and five teams on eight points to battle it out for the solitary fourth place.