Australia fancy playoff chances as rain changes group dynamics

England were robbed of a win [Source: AP]

On Wednesday, we witnessed two successive rain-curtailed encounters. While the game between England and Ireland was called off midway, ensuring Ireland's narrow win, the clash between New Zealand and Afghanistan was abandoned without a ball bowled due to a persistent downpour. 

Usually, any sane person would predict England and New Zealand to win against Ireland and Afghanistan, respectively. However, digging deeper, we can understand that rain favoured not only the underdogs but also the defending champions, Australia. 

Notably, Australia suffered a crushing 89-run defeat in their World Cup opener against New Zealand, which affected their net run rate adversely. Therefore, they had not only to win their remaining encounters by massive margins but also pray for England and New Zealand to somehow collapse against Ireland and Afghanistan. And to their good fortune, both their competitors could not grab two points in their respective encounters, courtesy of rain playing the spoilsport. 

Regarding England, it will take a long time for them to digest this defeat. Honestly, with 53 needed off 33, they had backed themselves to get over the line, with Moeen and Livingstone batting and Sam Curran yet to come. In hindsight, they might hold Malan's sloth-paced knock accountable for the horrible outcome, but the real culprits were Alex Hales, Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes, who let the team down for the second successive time in the showpiece event. 

Group 1 Points table [Source: OneCricket]

As it stands, England must win it against Australia and New Zealand to keep their playoff hopes alive. They huffed and puffed to victory in the first game and unfortunately lost in the second, so they are morally down. On the contrary, Australia have smelled their way to the playoffs, and considering how they step up when it matters the most, they will enter with a different mindset against their arch-rivals on Friday. 

Despite sharing points with Afghanistan, New Zealand are certainly in the best position to finish as the table-toppers in Group 1. Currently, they seem more formidable than England and Sri Lanka, which is why we back them to register comfortable wins in their remaining encounters. 

Taking the recent form of the teams into account, we feel New Zealand and Australia will qualify for the playoffs from Group 1. But deep down, we know the group is wide open, and Sri Lanka and England are pretty much capable of surprising the Trans-Tasman rivals. So all we can say is a series of riveting battles await us, with four top-tier teams set to clash in the coming days.  

Also Read: ENG vs IRE: Michael Vaughan lashes out at England after shocking defeat to Ireland