The India-New Zealand semi-final of the ODI World Cup 2023 officially eliminated Pakistan.

At Kolkata’s famous Eden Gardens stadium, England and Pakistan are now playing in the 44th match of the ODI World Cup 2023. Despite having the 2019 winner Jos Buttler as their captain, England’s performance in the competition has been underwhelming. They are already out of the running for the semifinals. Pakistan, on the other hand, was still in the running, but they had to accomplish an almost unachievable goal in order to raise their net run rate relative to New Zealand. As a result, they are now officially eliminated from the competition.

Australia will now play South Africa in the semifinal, while India will play New Zealand.

Before Pakistan’s game against England, they had two options. They would have to beat England by almost 287 runs, or bowl them out for only 13 runs, if they had batted first and scored 300 runs. At 400 runs, they needed to beat England by about 300 runs to qualify, while at 500 runs, they needed to beat England by about 390 runs.

If England bowled first and scored less than 100 runs, Pakistan would need to chase the total score down in about 2.3 overs. If England scored three hundred runs, Pakistan would have to reach the target in about six overs in order to remain in the race. Due to their superior net run rate, it was already decided before the game that New Zealand would advance to the semifinals, making these calculations all but impossible.

England began the game batting first and amassed 337 runs in their 50 overs with fifty-score efforts from Ben Stokes, Joe Root, and Jonny Bairstow. Stokes produced another outstanding performance, hitting 84 off just 76 balls, including two sixes and eleven fours. Haris Rauf, who claimed three wickets with the ball, was Pakistan’s best bowler.

It was always going to be impossible for Pakistan to complete the chase in just 6.4 overs if they were to advance to the semifinals. Pakistan had amassed 62 runs at the end of the report’s writing, having lost three wickets. Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan were at the crease with respective scores of one and twenty-one.