England's World Cup Fate Hinges on Rain and Net Run Rate

At the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, Antigua, on Thursday, England takes on Oman in the T20 World Cup. A victory there would guarantee England a spot in the Super 8. But rain can make things more difficult for them.

After losing to Australia and suffering a washout against Scotland, England needs to defeat Oman and Namibia in order to have any chance of placing second in group B and going to the Super 8 stage of the championship.

Even then, though, there is a concerning scenario in which the Scots, who play Australia on Sunday, would know how much they could afford to lose and still lead England, and Australia would know how much they could win and still eliminate England, if they are still short of Scotland's net run-rate.

Jos Buttler, the captain of England, believes that his team and himself cannot allow themselves to be "consumed" by net run-rate scenarios, which are probably going to be crucial to their World Cup survival.

Buttler remarked, "I don't think it's s*** or bust quite yet." What we must do and how we must play is obvious. For us to have any chance of moving forward, we must win the match against Oman.

Therefore, we must earn the right. It goes without saying that if we can put ourselves in a position to influence our net run-rate, we should.

"We must acknowledge the necessity of increasing net run-rate, but we must resist being overcome by it. You have no chance at all if we try to do that part first and give up on trying to win.

We've looked at a few areas, but the game will constantly change, so we don't think we need to use a lot of energy, even if it means we have to score a certain number of runs. Things like that will come to pass on that day.

We regard the predicament we find ourselves in as a challenge. It doesn't intimidate us.

"If we do it right, we see it as an exciting opportunity to do something special." That would offer us a great deal of confidence as we got closer.

It's believed that for England to surpass Scotland in run-rate, they must win both of their games on Thursday and Saturday by a combined margin of almost 100 runs, but even that might not be sufficient. "Obviously, Scotland has an advantage in that situation (because we play two games before they do), but right now, we're quite comfortable," Buttler said.

Buttler has advised his colleagues to focus on winning than of worrying too much about the net run-rate.

Realistically, we've only played one and a quarter games. While it's simple to state that we're in a difficult situation, we haven't played much. The gang still exudes a great deal of confidence. If we execute it correctly, we see it as an opportunity to accomplish something unique.

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