Let’s get behind the Proteas in the 2019 Cricket World Cup

Guess what! The 2019 Cricket World Cup is just around the corner and all 10 nations look ready to battle it out. Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies will be locking horns as they try to book a spot in the semi-finals in this year’s tournament.

Australia will be going into this tourney in high-spirits having won the 2015 World Cup after beating joint hosts New Zealand by seven wickets (with 101 balls remaining, equals to 16.83’ overs).

The entire innings was as follows, New Zealand 183 (45/50 overs); Australia 186/3 (33.1/50 overs). The previous world cup was the 11th since its inception. The 2019 Cricket World Cup is the 12th edition of the Cricket World Cup, scheduled to be hosted by England and Wales, from May 30 to July 14. Australia, West Indies and India remain the favourites to lift the trophy come July 14.

According to Topend Sports, “Australia is the most successful World Cup team having won the tournament five times, and were runner up another two times. West Indies won the first two tournaments, and India has also won it two times. Pakistan and Sri Lanka have won one tournament each.”

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Our boys, the South African national cricket team, nicknamed the Proteas, will be flying our flag high and we must stand behind them united.

Let us quickly analyse how the squad fared in the 2015 Cricket World Cup, below are fixtures and results of the games:

• SA won by 62 runs against Zimbabwe at Hamilton – Feb 15, 2015
• Lost to India by 130 runs at Melbourne – Feb 22, 2015
• SA won by 257 runs over the West Indies at Sydney – Feb 27, 2015
• SA won by 201 runs defeating Ireland at Canberra – March 3, 2015
• Lost to Pakistan by 29 runs using The Duckworth Lewis (D/L method) at Auckland – March 7, 2015
• SA won by 146 runs beating the United Arab Emirates at Wellington – March 12, 2015
• SA won over Sri Lanka at Sydney – Mar 18, 2015, by 9 wickets in the quarter-finals with 192 balls remaining (32 overs)
• SA lost in the semi-finals to New Zealand by 4 wickets (with 1 ball remaining) (D/L method)

The group stage format is a round-robin, where all ten teams play each other once, in a single group. This means a total of 45 matches will be played, with each team playing a total of nine matches. The top four teams from the group will progress to the knockout stage. A similar format was previously used in the 1992 Cricket World Cup.