We are the robots, part 2

There’s one thing you can say about cricket that you can’t say about most sports: it’s fair. 99 times out of 100 the better time wins. You don’t see giant killings like you do in other sports. They happen, sure, but they are the definition of rare.

And who the better team is is usually defined using the ICC rankings. And so, as I have done before, I thought I would take the current ICC rankings (as they are today, not as they were when the teams qualified) and see how the upcoming Champions Trophy would play out if the rankings were gospel. I.e. if the team ranked higher always won.

When I did this previously the robots got about 88% of the group stage matches correct (or thereabouts) and three of the four knockout stage teams right (they picked Pakistan which missed out, the West Indies taking their place). They got both semi-final winners right (Sri Lanka and India) and they nailed the final.

Not bad.

So according to the rankings how does the Champions Trophy shape up? Let’s take a look. (This is of course assuming there are zero no-results during the tournament which is of course silly because it’s England in June, but hey this is just meant to be fun.)

Group A:

Group B:

Knockout stages:

And so there we have it. Congrats to Australia.

I’ll check in on the robots during the tournament and see how they’re doing.

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Robots aside but that India v South Africa Group B match has “match of the tournament” written all over it.