Who needs what to reach T20 World Cup semi-finals?
· Yahoo Sports
The Super 8 stage at the T20 World Cup is in full flow with four semi-final spots up for grabs.
England were the first team to qualify for the next phase after claiming convincing wins over Sri Lanka and Pakistan in their opening two Super 8 fixtures. South Africa have also joined them.
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Here's what the remaining teams still in contention need to progress to the next stage.
What's the format and how does qualification work?
A total of eight teams progressed to the Super 8 stage, with each being placed in to two groups - Group 1 and Group 2.
Group 1: West Indies, South Africa, India Zimbabwe
Group 2: England, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
Each team plays three matches in the Super 8 phase, facing each of the other teams in their respective group once.
After those fixtures, the top two teams in each group will advance to the semi-finals, with the winner of each Super 8 group facing the runner-up from the other.
Group 1
South Africa are through after two impressive victories out of two.
India and West Indies are effectively playing for a spot in the semi-finals when they meet on 1 March.
Zimbabwe were eliminated after losing against India on 26 February.
Group 2
England are through to the semi-finals after wins over Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
New Zealand will progress if they beat England on Friday or if Pakistan fail to beat Sri Lanka on Saturday.
If the Black Caps lose to England, Pakistan could qualify by beating Sri Lanka but it would come down to net run-rate (NRR).
Sri Lanka are eliminated following their defeat by New Zealand on 25 February.
How is NRR calculated in cricket?
Net run-rate is the common method for differentiating teams level on points in a limited-overs cricket tournament.
It is a formula that measures a team's average margin of victory, or defeat - a side with several big wins will have a positive net run-rate, while those who have suffered sizeable losses will have a negative one.
To understand net run-rate, you have to first get your head around run-rate.
That's the average number of runs scored per over by a team in the innings of one match - so, for example, a score of 140 off 20 overs for Team A equals seven runs per over.
Net run-rate is then calculated by subtracting the opposition's run-rate from the other team's run-rate.
So if Team B scored 130 off 20 overs, their run-rate would be 6.5 runs per over.
Therefore Team A would emerge from the encounter with a positive net-run rate of 0.500 (7 - 6.5), while Team B would take away one of -0.500 (6.5 - 7).
Once a side has played more than one match in a competition, these figures are calculated cumulatively.
Let's say Team A scored 160 runs from 20 overs in their next match, then they would have a tournament total of 300 runs, divided by 40 overs - a run-rate of 7.5.
If their second opponents scored 180 runs from 20 overs, we first add that to Team B's score, making 310 divided by 40 overs - that makes 7.75.
Take 7.75 from 7.5 and Team A end up with a run-rate of -0.25.
Are we done with the calculations now? Well, not quite...
If a team loses and is bowled out early, then we wouldn't want to divide their score by the overs they played, as that would potentially deliver them a higher run-rate than their opponent.
Therefore if a team is bowled out inside their allotted overs, their run-rate is calculated by dividing their runs by the maximum overs they could have batted.