In the final group games, India easily beat South Africa and Pakistan beat Sri Lanka, the latter being a see-saw game in which the ever-mercurial Pakistan did well to restrict Sri Lanka to a low score of 236 and then seemed to be cruising towards a comfortable victory at 92/1 before experiencing a batting collapse that left them reeling at 162/7. But a stout rearguard action saw them reach the target.

South Africa once again had a disappointing tournament. For the longest time they have jockeyed with India and Australia for the top three positions and on any given day can beat any team in the world. But they seem to have trouble stringing together the consistent string of wins needed to win tournaments and so consistently fall short of expectations. In the final group game that saw their elimination, they had a failure with both bat and ball. They scored a measly 191 and India had little trouble reaching that score with the loss of just two wickets.

In the first semi-final game on Wednesday, England will play Pakistan and the following day Bangladesh plays India. Going by form, England and India should be the winners and meet in the final on Sunday. Pakistan is more likely that Bangladesh to cause an upset. But in this tournament Bangladesh has put in more consistent performances. With Pakistan, one never knows what kind of performance to expect. I myself hope that we see a Pakistan-Bangladesh final but the odds of that are not good.