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Joseph Hoover Gross Islet (St Lucia), May 10 (PTI) Facing the risk of an early exit, India will not only have to produce a miracle against Sri Lanka in their last Super Eights match here tomorrow but also hope for a favour from Australia if they aspire to enter the semifinals of the Twenty20 cricket World Cup. After slumping to the 49-run loss against Australia in their first Group F Super Eight match, India''s semifinal hopes received a severe battering yesterday when Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men fell short by 14 runs against the West Indies. Despite the two defeats, India are mathematically still in the fray for a semifinal place. But for that to happen, Dhoni''s men will first have to beat Sri Lanka tomorrow and then hope Australia drub the West Indies by a big margin, which will see three teams locked with same points in Group F. In such a scenario, the net run-rate (NRR) will be brought into action to pick which one of these three teams -- India, Sri Lanka and the West Indies -- qualify for the semi-finals. To make matter worse for India, they would have to win by a handsome margin against the islanders tomorrow to bolster their net run-rate, which is a dismal -1.578. Despite losing to Australia by 81 runs yesterday, Sri Lanka have a NRR of -0.600 while the West Indies'' NRR is -1.057. India could have avoided this mathematical dilemma had their batsmen executed better skills or been prudent while handling short balls. Cramped for time and space, they have injudiciously played the pull shot, though not being physically and technically well equipped to challenge such hostile deliveries. As the frazzled Indian stars may have realised by now, merely throwing the bat around at short balls, without getting inside the line or under the ball, doesn''t fetch runs. It needs grit, gumption, skill and prudence to face such adversity, especially on a bouncy and fast track. "When we step out of the sub-continent and play on bouncy tracks, we get into trouble. In the other forms of the game, we can let the ball go by. But you can''t afford to let the ball sail past you in the Twenty20 format as the pressure will increase," said India skipper Dhoni, lamenting his batsmen''s inability to combat the short-pitched deliveries. More PTI JH SSC MRM.
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