Cricket World Cup 2023 Points Table: How Afghanistan's Win Impacts Pakistan's Semifinals Dream

Afghanistan cricket team boosted their chances of reaching the Cricket World Cup 2023 semifinals with a comfortable seven-wicket victory over Netherlands in Lucknow on Friday. This was the fourth win for Afghanistan as they leapfrogged Pakistan to grab the fifth position in the standings with eight points. As a result, they have the same amount of points after seven matches as New Zealand but the Kiwis are ahead on Net Run Rate (NRR). Australia are third with eight points but they have played just six games.

Afghanistan now face South Africa and Australia in their last two matches of the group stage and victory in both games will take them to 12 points. If New Zealand also win their remaining two matches, both teams will be tied and the race for the No. 4 position can be decided by the NRR.

Both New Zealand and Afghanistan can also qualify depending on Australia's results in the remaining matches. Australia have three games left and one of them will be against in-form Afghanistan.

However, the result on Friday was not good news for Pakistan. The Babar Azam-led side has 6 points from 7 matches and they can reach a maximum of 10 points if they win both of their remaining games.

In that case, their future in the competition will be completely dependent on how Australia, New Zealand and Afghanistan perform in their remaining matches. Pakistan will also need to win their remaining matches with big margins in order to keep them in contention with respect to the NRR.

India lead the points table with 14 points while South Africa are second with 12.