Pakistan officially knocked out of ODI World Cup 2023, India-New Zealand semi-final confirmed

England and Pakistan are currently competing in the 44th match of the ongoing ODI World Cup 2023 at the iconic Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata. Led by Jos Buttler, the 2019 champions, England have had a disappointing run in the tournament.

They have already been eliminated from the semifinal race. On the other hand, Pakistan were still in contention, although they needed to achieve an almost impossible task to improve their net run rate compared to New Zealand, which they failed to do, and are now officially out of the tournament.

India will now take on New Zealand in the semi-final, while Australia face South Africa. 

Prior to their match against England, Pakistan had two scenarios. If they batted first and scored 300 runs, they needed to defeat England by approximately 287 runs, effectively bowling England out for only 13 runs. For a score of 400 runs, the required victory margin was approximately 300 runs, and for 500 runs, they needed to beat England by around 390 runs to qualify. 

When bowling first, If England scored less than 100 runs, Pakistan had to chase it down in approximately 2.3 overs. In the case of England scoring around 300 runs, Pakistan needed to chase it down in approximately 6 overs to stay in the race. These calculations were next to impossible, and it was certain before the start of the game that New Zealand would qualify for the semis, courtesy of their better net run rate.

In the match, England batted first and scored 337 runs in their 50 overs, courtesy of fifties by Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, and Ben Stokes. Stokes played another brilliant knock, scoring 84 off just 76 balls with 11 fours and two sixes. For Pakistan, Haris Rauf was the standout performer with the ball as he took three wickets.

If Pakistan had to qualify for the semis, they needed to finish the chase in just 6.4 overs, which was always going to be impossible. At the time of writing this report, Pakistan had scored 62 runs for the loss of three wickets, with Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan at the crease at scores of one and 21 respectively.