UAE keep World Cup hopes alive, book berth in Zimbabwe Qualifiers
- 05 Apr 2023
Gulf Today, Staff Report
UAE have booked their berth in the Zimbabwe World Cup qualifiers, which will decide who takes the remaining two spots for the showpiece event in India.
The two teams, who finished on the top in the Zimbabwe Qualifiers, will get a chance to rub shoulders with big boys at the World Cup in India.
Along with UAE, USA have also booked a spot in the Zimbabwe Qualifiers. It is for the first time they are returning to the World Cup Qualifiers since their appearance in the event in 2005, when it was called Champions Trophy. US beat Jersey by 25 runs to move to the top of rankings.
UAE qualified by virtue of Namibia’s big victory over Canada. If Canada had beaten Namibia, they would have kept their hopes alive. They would have to wait for the result of the UAE and Jersey match. But after their loss, the UAE-Jersey match, which is under way, has become a dead rubber.
Namibia have won three matches and lost two while the UAE have also won four matches and lost one. Even If UAE had lost to Jersey, they would have still qualified by virtue of having beaten Namibia and Canada both in the initial tiebreaker of the tourney.
Because as per the rules in the qualifiers, the head-to-head record comes into play rather than run rate in deciding the qualifiers. So the UAE match against Jersey was effectively a dead rubber even before it started.
The other Associated Nations who qualified for Zimbabwe World Cup Qualifiers are Scotland, Oman and Nepal.
They booked their berths by finishing in top-three in the World Cup League 2 ODI tourney, which was played from 2019 through 2023.
They will be joined by bottom five teams who finished in the bottom of the ODI Super League: Netherlands, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Sri Lanka and one of either South Africa or Ireland.
South Africa are in the eighth spot but Ireland still have three ODIs to play against Bangladesh in May. If Ireland can do a clean sweep that would put them on par with Proteas on points.
In that case run-rate would be a deciding factor, which team will go through. In that case net run rate would serve as the tiebreaker to decide which team clinches an automatic berth to the 2023 World Cup and which team falls back into the qualifier in Zimbabwe.
