Note: Starting today, we will use the data of the second round of the tournament of World T20 2014 only for predicting the match outcomes, instead of using the data from 2012 onwards, as we were doing up to this point.
Pakistan vs Bangladesh
Prediction: Pakistan (53%) expected to beat Bangladesh (47%) in a close encounter
That we are predicting Pakistan to win this match will not be surprising to many, but the fact that we are predicting this to be a close encounter may be surprising to many. Bangladesh have lost in a pretty tame fashion to India and West Indies in their previous two matches. However, the last time Bangladesh and Pakistan played a T20 match was in the World T20 tournament in 2012, and the match went down to the wire. Pakistan and Bangladesh have a long history of playing some really close matches, and expect this one to be of a similar kind as well.
India vs Australia
Prediction: India (70%) expected to easily defeat Australia (30%)
Given that we are predicting Pakistan to win the previous match, this marquee match-up of World T20 may as well turn out to be a dead rubber. For, if Pakistan win their match, then Australia will be eliminated from the knock-out stage even before this match starts. This tournament has been rather disappointing for Australia after they had an amazing run in their summer season. In contrast, India have been firing on all cylinders after a disappointing run of their own in the winter season. Just goes to show how quickly fortunes can turn around in Cricket, especially in the shortest format of the game.
Given that Australia have only a 30% chance of winning this match, the probability that they are still alive in the tournament after this match is just 14%. India, of course, have already advanced to the semi-final stage, but they would still be playing hard to win this match and ensure that they end up at the top in their group.
Cricmetric’s current prediction score: 10/14 (71%)