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Week Four Roundup

As Australia put one foot in the semis, with South Africa and India already confirmed and facing each other head to head tomorrow, the race is well and truly on for the final berth. It's been a tournament of two halves so far for New Zealand, whose four wins on the trot have given way to four defeats and left them in peril, and they'll fully deserve to crash out if they blow their final match against Sri Lanka on Thursday. Of the two other members of the Eight Points Club, Afghanistan are the team with two bites of the cherry that could see them compensate for their poor net run-rate by raising their tally to 12, but to do so would require two more historic victories over Australia and South Africa. More likely to take advantage of the Kiwi predicament are Pakistan, whose final match next Saturday is against some hapless pack of muppets who prepared for this fifty-over tournament by knocking a hundred balls around.

Individual records are also there for the making; with at least three more matches to come, Quinton de Kock is one century away from equalling Rohit Sharma's five at a tournament in 2019, and if he does it with 129 or more it'll beat Tendulkar's twenty-year-old record haul. Meanwhile, the five-over five-fer that blew Sri Lanka apart yesterday also made Mohammed Shami India's greatest World Cup wicket-taker, the final scalp of Kasun Rajitha the one that lifted him clear of Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan onto 45 wickets. While it would take an effort in the matches remaining, the current top five bowlers also stand a chance of overhauling Mitchell Starc's record 27 from 2019.

Leading Run-Scorers

1. Quinton de Kock (SA) - 545
2. Rachin Ravindra (NZ) - 523
3. Virat Kohli (IND) - 442
4. David Warner (AUS) - 428
5. Rohit Sharma (IND) - 402


Leading Wicket-Takers

1. Adam Zampa - (AUS) - 19
2. Dilshan Madushanka (SRI) - 18
3. Marco Jansen (SA) - 16 [for 321]
4. Shaheen Afridi (PAK) - 16 [for 409]
5. Jasprit Bumrah (IND) - 15