Hosts England were the firm favourites to lift the ongoing world cup but their two successive loss to Sri Lanka and defending champions Australia have hurted their chances. With the two loss, England have also lost two rating points to drop at second position in the latest MRF ODI rankings with 122 points.
Team India will take the number one spot and will play as a number one ranked ODI team against West Indies on Thursday.
England will now take on India and New Zealand in the last two matches of their campaign. If they manage to beat both the sides, they will smoothly sail through to the semi finals of the tournament. A setback against any of these teams will give a chance to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to make the last four of the tournament.
India’s journey so far in the world cup
India started their world cup campaign on a positive note after they pipped a determined South Africa in their world cup opener by 6 wickets. They next pipped a much fancied and top contenders- Australia in their next clash by 36 runs to take two wins in as many matches. Their third game against New Zealand was washed off due to rain in Nottingham. In the biggest rivalry of world cricket, India faced Pakistan in their fourth fixture and they pipped the Sarfaraz Ahmed led team by a huge margin of 89 runs to take a lead of 7-0 against men in green in the world cup history.
The men in blue faced a tough task from a low lying Afghanistan in their next clash which turned out to be a low scoring thriller. India scored just 224 runs in their quota of 50 overs and Afghanistan fell just 11 runs short of the target courtesy Mohammed Shami’s brilliance in the last over.
