[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Week Three Roundup

A little over halfway through the group stage, and there's now clear daylight between the four tournament favourites and the rest of the pack. New Zealand, Australia, India and England should all be semi-finalists come next month, and there's little in the way of a challenge from elsewhere. At this moment, Bangladesh are best-placed to try and nick a spot after an even better campaign than I predicted for them, while West Indies could just about do it if they won every remaining fixture (sadly, a tall order for the islanders). There's not even a sniff for South Africa, who are now going through the motions, and Sri Lanka are in a false position thanks to two abandonments that they'd almost certainly have lost otherwise. Pakistan just can't get their act together despite some brilliant individual performances, and are now nothing more than a banana skin for the favourites; and neutrals everywhere are still keeping their fingers crossed for Afghanistan to just get that one big result.

In the individual stakes, three batsmen have passed the halfway mark to breaking Sachin Tendulkar's record 673 runs in a World Cup, while two bowlers are halfway to Glenn McGrath's 26 wickets.

Leading Run-scorers

1. Shakib Al Hasan (BAN) - 384
2. Joe Root (ENG) - 367
3. Aaron Finch (AUS) - 343
4. Rohit Sharma (IND) - 319
5. David Warner (AUS) - 281


Leading Wicket-takers

1. Mohammad Aamer (PAK) - 13 [for 170]
2. Mitchell Starc (AUS) - 13 [for 249]
3. Jofra Archer (ENG) - 12
4. Lockie Ferguson (NZ) - 11 [for 158]
5. Patrick Cummins (AUS) - 11 [for 207]