Great Britain requires a win and good fortune with other results

A rough guide to how Great Britain can qualify for the second round of the Baseball World Cup!

Note: Great Britain’s game against Croatia on Sept 12 has been brought forward by 30 minutes and will now begin at 15:30 CET (14:30 BST). The preceding game between Japan and Nicaragua is now scheduled for 10:00 CET.

The first round of the 2009 Baseball World Cup concludes on Saturday, September 12. The top two finishers from each of Groups A-E will automatically qualify for the second round. Great Britain still has a chance to qualify for the second round by finishing as one of the four best third-placed teams from the five groups. Second round hosts Italy and the Netherlands make up the total of 16 which will play in that round. But what are GB’s chances of joining them after all 20 teams have played their final group games on Saturday?

There are many possible permutations and almost all the teams which haven’t yet confirmed qualification still have a theoretical chance of making the second round if results go their way. So the GB squad can’t get pre-occupied with ‘what-ifs’ – it needs to concentrate simply on winning the game against Croatia and conceding as few runs as possible.

However, for the rest of us a few back-of-a-napkin calculations have been done below to try to give a rough guide to what to look out for in the way of results from the other groups throughout Saturday. Qualified teams and those still in contention are listed below for each group along with the win-loss record and runs conceded in parentheses for those teams still battling for a qualification berth.

Group A

Qualified: Australia, Mexico

Chinese Taipei (0-2, 15)
Czech Republic (0-2, 26)

Chinese Taipei and the Czech Republic face off on Saturday. GB will want the Czechs to win and take third place as they have conceded a high number of runs already.

Group B

Cuba (2-0, 5)
Puerto Rico (1-1, 13)
Spain (1-1, 5)
South Africa (0-2, 25)

There are three strong teams vying for the top three places. One would expect South Africa to be out-matched by the Puerto Ricans in Saturday’s game and for Cuba to get past Spain. However, Spain’s tight defence so far should stand it in good stead to qualify in third place. In whatever combination all three of the Spanish-speaking nations are expected to make it to the second round.

Group C

Qualified: Canada

Netherlands Antilles (1-1, 23)
South Korea (1-1, 10)

Assuming that head-to-head record comes into play as a tiebreaker for teams finishing on the same win-loss record, Sweden (0-2) should have no chance of qualification due to losses to both Netherlands Antilles and South Korea. Canada will be expected to see off the Swedes in Saturday’s game anyway. The best result for GB would be a South Korean victory over Netherlands Antilles which would leave the high-conceding Antilleans in third place.

Group D

Qualified: Japan, Nicaragua

Great Britain (0-2, 19)
Croatia (0-2, 23)

Great Britain must beat Croatia to have any chance of qualification.

Group E

Venezuela (2-0, 11)
USA (1-1, 14)
Germany (1-1, 10)
China (0-2, 31)

Like Group B there are three strong teams here. Venezuela play Germany and would be expected to beat the Europeans and the USA should ease past the Chinese. Again, as with Group B, the current top three in any order could all go through to the second round due to a relatively low number of runs conceded. However, Germany will be in trouble if the Venezuelans put up double figures against them as they did against the USA and China.

Conclusion – it’s all to play for!

Based on the calculation and large helping of assumption above, half of the four third-placed qualification berths can be tentatively assigned (Group B and E). If Great Britain beats Croatia, with total runs conceded of 19+ across Group D games, it is then likely to be competing most closely with the third-placed teams in Groups A and C. The way it currently stands Britain will have a better chance of qualifying if those teams are the Czech Republic (26+) and Netherlands Antilles (23+) respectively. However, GB may not know its fate until Germany and Venezuela have wrapped up the final game of the day which begins at 19:00 CET (18:00 BST).

Latest results and standings can be found on the official Baseball World Cup website.

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