Pakistan in strong position to qualify for Women’s World Cup

Women in Green, Sri Lanka primed to progress from qualifiers

DUBAI: Pakistan and Sri Lanka look set to make it to the 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup as they take on India and Bangladesh respectively, in the last round of Super Six stage of the qualifiers on Sunday.

India lead the Super Six points table with eight points while South Africa are the other side to have qualified with six points. Pakistan and Sri Lanka are on four points each and close to qualifying, while Bangladesh are on two points and with a long shot at qualifying as they need to pull off a huge win in the last match.

Pakistan should be through even with a loss due to their high net run-rate while Bangladesh will have to beat Sri Lanka by 85 runs if they hope to make it ahead of Sri Lanka.

In case they are chasing, Bangladesh will have to do it in quick time, depending on the target. For example, if Sri Lanka score 200, Bangladesh will have to get to the target in 27.1 overs in order to edge out the opposition.

Ireland plays their last match against South Africa but are out of contention as they have no points in the Super Six, which includes points carried over from wins against other qualifiers from a side’s preliminary group, even as they play qualifiers from the other group in the second stage of the tournament.

World champions Australia, England, New Zealand and the West Indies have already qualified for the ICC Women’s World Cup by finishing in the top four of the ICC Women’s Championship.

Pakistan’s huge 86 runs victory over Ireland on Friday means they have not only boosted their run-rate but also gained confidence going into the match against arch-rivals India.

Pakistan captain Sana Mir is confident her side can qualify for the World Cup. “Our run-rate gives us a breather for our qualification campaign. We can go with confidence in the match against India, who has been doing well — their bowlers, batters, everyone is contributing. It is going to take our A game to pull off an upset tomorrow. For now, we just want to do our basics right and play good, disciplined cricket. Our batters have been doing quite well, our top three batters are the leading run-scorers in the tournament, so I’m pretty happy. Hopefully, we can do it one more day.”