Net Run Rate: Our Age Old Enemy

[al Furqaan]

The Net Run Rate has seldom been our friend. This is a known fact for every true Bangladesh cricket fan. Countless World Cups, multilateral tournaments - both official and unofficial, and Under-19 World Cups have been lost by the Tigers due to either ignorance or inability to properly assess the NRR. While there is no guaranteed magic pill, I'm going to attempt to shed some light on how decision making can give us the best possible chance of exploiting the NRR in our favor.

Imagine a hypothetical 10 team ICC ODI event with two groups of 5 teams (ie 2019 World Cup). We are in a group that looks like this:

India
South Africa
New Zealand
Bangladesh
Zimbabwe/Ireland/Associate X/team we are expected to beat

Now the good thing is the order of the matches played don't have any real bearing on the NRR, except that let us suppose we are playing the minnow team last and a win puts us level on points with NZ.

So the assumption is that the top 3 teams progress to a Super 6 round, but it can work with any format - Super 8, QF, SF, etc.

Heading into our final group game, we've lost to both India and South Africa, but have beaten New Zealand as follows:

Bangladesh 290 (50) lost vs India 296 (47)
South Africa 280 (50) win vs Bangladesh 230 (50)
New Zealand 260 (50) lost vs Bangladesh 266 (49)

Our NRR at this point is -0.412.

Assume that NZ are currently sitting in 3rd place with 2 wins and a NRR of +0.200.

What should our strategy be against ZIM? Do we bowl first as we like to do? Do we bat first? If so, by what margin must we win?

Assuming we can restrict ZIM to 220 in 50 overs, here's how the scenarios go.

If we bowl first, and chase their score, we would need to score 221 in 32 overs or less (at 6.91 runs per over) to pass New Zealand on NRR.

If we bat first and bowl them out or restrict them to 220, we would need to score 321 runs (at 6.42 runs per over) to pass New Zealand on NRR.

Both of these scenarios are challenging and have risks of their own. However, with batting powerplays and proper utilization of big hitters, chasing even at a substantially higher required run rate is the more advantageous choice. An added factor is that Zimbabwe would be more likely to exceed 220 if batting second against a big target than if they were batting first.

[Mauryan]

In a 10 team tournament we wouldn't be in a group with zimbabwe