Super 8 Qualification Scenarios: How can West Indies, England, South Africa & USA qualify for 2024 T20 World Cup semifinals?
West Indies' massive win over the USA on Saturday morning has meant that the former team, alongside South Africa and England, are almost equally in contention for the two semi-final spots from their Super-Eights group. The fourth member, the USA, are practically out but have a mathematical chance too.
Let's discuss how can the four Group 2 teams qualify for the semi-finals one by one, starting with the table-toppers South Africa. With two wins in two games in the second round, the Proteas are yet to be beaten in the 2024 T20 World Cup. At times, they have ridden on the skills of their exceptional talents but sometimes, on luck.
Now, they have it quite simple. Winning the final match of the Super Eight against the West Indies, irrespective of the margin, would fix their spot at the top. They can qualify a day earlier too, if the USA conjures an upset against England on Sunday in Barbados, which will leave the latter with two points and make sure that no team apart from West Indies would be able to match South Africa's tally of four points.
The only way South Africa can go out is if they lose to the Windies and if England beat the USA with a margin enough to take their NRR beyond the Proteas'.
Let's come to the West Indies. Unlike South Africa, their destiny isn't quite in their hands. If England beat the USA on Sunday, West Indies would need to trounce Aiden Marrkam and company with a margin good enough to beat England's NRR.
Although there's a big gap between the two — West Indies (1.81) and England (0.41) — Jos Buttler and company have already shown their skills in making up for it. If the USA beat England, then Rovman Powell's team will almost certainly qualify. They'll just have to make sure they don't lose to South Africa with a margin big enough that tanks their NRR below both England and the USA.
England and USA's qualification scenarios
England are in a similar situation to the Windies.
They need to win their last game by a massive margin (similar to how they did against Oman in the group stage) and then they'll have to hope that either West Indies lose to South Africa or not win by a margin big enough to surpass their NRR. If they lose to the USA, they'll have to make sure the opponents' NRR doesn't go beyond their own and then South Africa heavily trounce the West Indies.
Finally, for the USA, their biggest issue is their NRR of -2.908. They'll need to secure a historically heavy win over England and then hope South Africa beat the West Indies by a margin massive enough to push their NRR below them.