Currently, Sri Lanka top the group with four points and a healthy +1.546 NRR, while Afghanistan sit third with two points but a superior +2.150 NRR. If Sri Lanka beat Afghanistan, both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will qualify. But if Afghanistan win, net run rate will decide.
For Bangladesh to progress in that scenario, Afghanistan must win by a large margin if batting first at least 71 runs or chase with at least 53 balls to spare. Otherwise, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan would advance.
Bangladesh could have avoided this equation with a quicker win against Hong Kong China. But opener Tanzid Hasan Tamim refused to dwell on the past: “I don’t want to regret that. What’s gone is gone. Now we just have to look at the equation in front of us.”
Asked if the team had net run rate in mind during their last game, he admitted: “Of course it was in our heads. We had the chance. It would’ve been good for the team if the margin was bigger. But it didn’t happen. At the end of the day, we had to win this match, and we did. That’s the most important thing.”
Bangladesh have often faced such mathematical scenarios in ICC and ACC events. Fans even mock the repeated “equation-chasing” on social media. But Tanzid insisted: “We never look at it like that. Every match is important. We lost the previous game badly, nothing to say about that. But whenever we go out to play, we try to give our 100 percent.”
