T20 World Cup 2022: How can Pakistan still qualify for semi-finals?

Zimbabwe outplayed the former T20 World Champions Pakistan in their group-stage encounter of the T20 World Cup 2022 on Thursday, October 27. With this, Pakistan have now lost two of their matches in the tournament as they had earlier suffered a loss against the arch-rivals India. 

The Men in Green are placed second last on the points table above the Netherlands as they have a better net run-rate as compared to the Dutch side, but will they still be able to qualify for the semi-finals?

Pakistan need to win the rest of the games and hope some other results go in their favour 

First things first, Pakistan need to win their remaining games by handsome margins. They are slated to take on the Netherlands next in the upcoming Super 12 encounter followed by encounters against South Africa and then their last game against Bangladesh. Hence, they will earn six points on the points table if they win all the three upcoming games. 

After winning all their games, the Men in Green will hope that the top two teams in their group which are currently India and South Africa, stay on six points or below with the final standings to be calculated through NRR. 

The Asian side will look to win their rest of the games by big margins to improve their net run rate. Pakistan's future in the tournament mainly depends on how their arch-rivals India and South Africa play remaining of their matches in the competition. 

The problem for the Babar Azam-led side is that they not only need to win all their remaining matches but they need to win them by big margins to keep a healthy net run rate. In today's game, their bowlers had set the stage for them by restricting Zimbabwe to just 130 for the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs. But the batters let the team down and failed to take the side over the line.