There's an extra permutation for the Harare jaunt, Neil, I think. Ireland are still in with a shout, and neither WI nor Sri Lanka are confirmed to qualify for the WC automatically. Ireland have a series against Bangladesh in May, and depending on other results, wouldn't necessarily even need a clean sweep to qualify automatically.
I notice that the Guardian version of this piece also said that the UAE would be playing--which, unless the ICC have changed the qualifying pathway since they first announced it, also isn't yet confirmed: Oman would be the third direct qualifier for the qualifiers from that league.
It's also not necessarily true that SA will have to go to Zimbabwe if they fail to win the England series. They might--but provided they beat the Netherlands twice, SA failing to qualify automatically would also require either Ireland to win every game against Bangladesh or Sri Lanka to win their series in NZ. I would say that neither of those--but especially the latter--is highly probable.
Even now, I suspect, SA's biggest obstacle to qualifying automatically is not other teams but the weather....but the weather could also help them, given that Ireland's series is at home during the early season and the NZ-SL one is very late season.
There's an extra permutation for the Harare jaunt, Neil, I think. Ireland are still in with a shout, and neither WI nor Sri Lanka are confirmed to qualify for the WC automatically. Ireland have a series against Bangladesh in May, and depending on other results, wouldn't necessarily even need a clean sweep to qualify automatically.
I notice that the Guardian version of this piece also said that the UAE would be playing--which, unless the ICC have changed the qualifying pathway since they first announced it, also isn't yet confirmed: Oman would be the third direct qualifier for the qualifiers from that league.
It's also not necessarily true that SA will have to go to Zimbabwe if they fail to win the England series. They might--but provided they beat the Netherlands twice, SA failing to qualify automatically would also require either Ireland to win every game against Bangladesh or Sri Lanka to win their series in NZ. I would say that neither of those--but especially the latter--is highly probable.
Even now, I suspect, SA's biggest obstacle to qualifying automatically is not other teams but the weather....but the weather could also help them, given that Ireland's series is at home during the early season and the NZ-SL one is very late season.
In past first class players played every game facing test quality bowling now they NEVER face test quality bowling Shukri knows where to look….!!