In the ongoing T20 World Cup, Pakistan managed to emerge as the strongest team in Group 2. Of the six teams which are in this group, India, Pakistan and New Zealand (ranked 2nd, 3rd and 4th respectively) are the three higher ranked teams, while Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia (ranked 8th, 14th and 19th respectively) are the three lower ranked teams.

Pakistan has comprehensively beaten the other two higher ranked teams in their group – India by 10 wickets and NZ by 5 wickets.

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That has given them a solid NRR of +0.738. They are of course sitting right on top of the group with 4 points from 2 games and are the frontrunners to top the group. Their remaining three matches are against the lower ranked teams – Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia, which they are expected to win.

Therefore, Pakistan are looking good to have a perfect record of 5 wins in the Super 12 stage and march into the semi-finals.

However, India and New Zealand are both yet to open their accounts. Both these teams have played one match each so far and lost – both to Pakistan. And this makes their clash against each other, which incidentally will be the next match for both these teams, a potential do or die affair.

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After Pakistan’s win vs NZ on Tuesday, there are now only two possible scenarios as far as Group 2 is concerned – either India beat NZ or NZ beat India.

Scenario 1

According to Times of India, if India beat NZ, then India will finish on 8 points (assuming they beat Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia) and NZ will finish on 6 points (assuming they beat Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia).

In this scenario, Pakistan and India will be the two teams going into the semi-finals from this group. This of course is based on the hypothesis that Pakistan, India and NZ will all beat Afghanistan, Namibia and Scotland.

Scenario 2 

According to TOI, if New Zealand beat India, then India will end on 6 points (assuming they beat Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia) and NZ will finish with 8 points (assuming they beat Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia). And if this happens, then the Kiwis will be joining Pakistan as the second team from Group 2 to qualify for the knockouts.