With seven direct qualifiers determined, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Ireland are left fighting for the remaining World Cup spot from the Super League.
As world cricket stands at the heels of the first, and sadly the last, cycle of the ODI Super League, the clearest possible picture on the qualification for the World Cup 2023 seems to have emerged.
The league feeding eight direct qualifiers for the event hosted by India and filtering out those compelled to undergo the mid-year global qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe is nearing its closure, with seven qualifiers seemingly confirmed and only one spot remaining up for grabs.
Those spots are filled by hosts India, current table-toppers New Zealand, and third-placed Pakistan, followed by world champions England, Australia, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The early qualification of Bangladesh and Afghanistan being a major reinforcer of the merit-based nature of the ICC Super League. These teams have booked their spots at the main event in India in October-November.
But there are still multiple contenders vying for that remaining spot, the final directly qualifying team for the 2023 World Cup. With bottom two Zimbabwe and Netherlands effectively ruled out, and set to undergo the global qualifiers, there are four teams part of the race for one slot: South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Ireland.
West Indies are currently ranked eighth in the points table with all their 24 matches completed and 88 points on the board. They can’t move further up in the standings but can be leapfrogged by other sides, especially South Africa and Sri Lanka.
Why not Ireland? Because their qualification hopes hang on a knife’s edge after conceding critical losses to Afghanistan and Netherlands. They are placed 11th after 21 matches, including just 6 wins.
For their sake, they must win 3-0 in their remaining series versus an in-form Bangladeshi side in the coming Irish summer and hope that other teams aren’t able to get over 98 points via other results. That being unlikely, makes the Proteas and the Sri Lankans the last contenders alongside West Indies for that final spot.
West Indies perhaps float on the same boat that the Irish do. They can’t do anything about their fortunes anymore, having suffered repeated losses in a campaign that only reiterated their longstanding problems in any format that requires them to do more than just slog.
That means a South Africa-Sri Lanka tussle for the last spot. Interestingly, though, both sides can’t directly lock horns for the same and must wait for the other team’s results to assert their destiny: whether they will book a direct flight to India or must take the vulnerable Zimbabwean route along the way?
The Proteas are placed ninth for the moment despite easing their life a lot with two successive impressive wins at home against England. They have 79 points to their name before approaching their final four fixtures of the league. The Sri Lankans, on their part, are placed tenth with two points less on the table before their final set of three matches.
To edge over the other side, the Proteas must not only clinch wins in at least two of their remaining matches, including two versus the Netherlands near the close of their home summer, but also hope that the Sri Lankans face defeat at the hands of New Zealand during the height of the Kiwi season.
After the final ODI of their series versus England in Kimberley, South Africa play two rescheduled one-dayers against the Dutch in late March as per their Super League itenerary. If they win one more game of these three, they edge over West Indies and send them to the qualifiers.
But to ensure that they can move past Sri Lankans, and Ireland even if they beat Bangladesh 3-0, they would want to clinch a minimum of two wins out of the remaining three games. That would take their tally, without budgeting for the loss of points due to over-rate, to 99 points.
Then, unless the Lankan Lions pull off a shock result and beat New Zealand in New Zealand by a margin of 3-0, they won’t be able to go past South Africa in the Super League standings, the infeasibility of the scenario making Proteas the front-runners to finish as the eighth qualifying team at the 2023 World Cup.
What Lankan Lions need is for South Africa to face two defeats, one of them against the Dutch, to ease their life a little bit, wherein then they would need a 2-1 scoreline in New Zealand in their favour to go through.
Expect South Africa to travel directly to India, and for Sri Lanka and West Indies, alongside Ireland, Zimbabwe and the Netherlands, to play the qualifiers in Zimbabwe with the best of the associate world in what would be a cut-throat tournament with high stakes.
