Pakistan are currently on a tour of Sri Lanka, where they will play a two-match Test series. The first match will start on Saturday, July 16 at Galle International Stadium, Galle. However, as compared to the last World Test Championship cycle, this time the equation is becoming more interesting for the top four teams.
South Africa is leading the WTC 2021-23 with 71.43 points. While Australia dropped to number two after losing the second match against Sri Lanka with 70 points. Sri Lanka is in third with 54.17 points, while Pakistan is in fourth with 52.38 points. That indicates the chances of the Men in Green very clearly.
Babar Azam and his team will play three series now. Two at home and one away. They will play the away series against Sri Lanka for two matches. On the other hand, they will host New Zealand and England at home for two and three matches, respectively. That means they are left seven Test matches to play now.
The clear path is that they need at least five wins out of seven matches but need to make sure that the result of the other two games should be a draw. This will make their qualification chances for the WTC final very bright. Because five wins with two draws will increase their points tally to around 112 and a percantage of approximately 66.67, which is almost the qualifying scenario. But what if they lose one or two matches in this period?
The path to qualification will become more difficult after losing two or more games. In that case, Babar Azam and his team need to depend on two other series: India vs Australia and Australia vs South Africa. Pakistan will hope that both these series end in a draw and with a tight scoreline.
But without depending on others, Pakistan can choose the straight way and win most of the matches out of their remaining seven games to make it to the WTC final. They are in good form and they just need to carry on with that. But their next opponent, Sri Lanka, will be high on confidence after beating the No. 1 ranked side by an innings.