With five matches behind each competitor in the Cricket World Cup, tournament host India remains the only team that’s still undefeated, and England, the defending champion, has fallen to nearly the bottom of rankings in a surprising turn of events.
Losers
1. England’s loss to Sri Lanka all but confirms an exit from the tournament. Sports commentators called it a brutal fall from glory for England, which won the last World Cup in 2019 after defeating New Zealand.
England’s team was the second-most favored to win this year’s tournament among Bloomberg Terminal subscribers who participated in the Bracket.
2. Australia batter Glenn Maxwell criticized the use of flashing light shows in the middle of matches as “the dumbest idea,” saying it takes time for the eyes to adjust as the stadium darkens for the shows, which were added for spectators. His teammate David Warner took a different view.
Winners
1. Afghanistan scored another win, this time against neighboring country and arch-rival Pakistan. The players were recorded dancing to the song Lungi Dance, which is associated by many Indians with Chennai, the city that hosted the match. The match also carried a political edge: Pakistan’s government has said it will begin expelling undocumented Afghan refugees who fled across the border following the Taliban’s takeover. Many of Afghanistan’s top players learned cricket in refugee camps in Pakistan.
2. Jubilant Food Works Ltd., which owns and operates fast food chains in India including Domino’s, has registered a bump in orders every time the Indian team plays cricket, Chief Executive Officer Sameer Khetarpal said in an analyst call on Wednesday. The company might be hoping that India’s strong run in the tournament continues, as it missed estimates for net income in the quarter ending in September, sending share prices down to their lowest in nearly two months.
--With assistance from Akriti Sharma, Menaka Doshi and Ashutosh Joshi.
(Adds World Cup predictions from Bloomberg users in third paragraph. A previous version corrected the spelling of Glenn Maxwell.)
