Review of the World Cup qualifying tournament-2018

Afghanistan defeated West Indies in the final. These two teams qualified to participate in the World Cup in 2019. Here is a summary of the table (though it does not include the final):

Summary Table

Also: 7th Netherlands, 8th Nepal, 9th PNG, 10th Hong Kong

Individual performances are given below. Matches involving Netherlands and Nepal did not have ODI status at the time of the tournament, and are thus excluded from Statsguru’s database and are not included in the tables below.

However, from now onwards Netherlands, Nepal, Scotland and UAE have ODI status while Hong Kong and PNG do not. A further reshuffle will be done in a process which will end about 4 years from now.

Most runs in ODIs (150 and above):

Most runs

No one scored more than one century, while Rahmat Shah was the only one with three 50+ scores. Note that BRM Taylor scored the most runs, far ahead of CS MacLeod.

Highest innings in ODIs (90 and above):

Highest innings

Note that the two highest scores were by relatively lesser known players.

Most wickets in ODIs (8 and above):

Most wkts

No one took 5wi more than once. 3 players took two 4wis apiece.

Best innings bowling in ODIs (4wi and above):

Innings bowling

Note that the top two performances were almost identical ( 5-27 and 5-28).

Most dismissals in ODIs (6 and above):

Most dismissals

NJ O’Brien was by far the leading keeper. The best by a non-keeper was 8 by N Zadran.

Most dismissals in an innings in ODIs (3 and above):

Innings dismissals

While NJ O’Brien and McKechnie took 4 dismissals as keepers, 4 non-keepers took 3 catches each.

All-round overall performance in ODIs (see criteria below):

AR-overall

Holder, followed by Mustafa were clearly the leading all-rounders of the series.

Best all-round match performances (minimum 30 runs and 3 wickets):

AR-match

A number of good performances.

And finally, the ICC ranking tables after the final got over on 25th March:

ICC rankings

It can be seen that in the long run Zimbabwe and Ireland did not do well enough to claim themselves in the top ten.