England takes close one in World Cup cricket

OK, I know a lot less about World Cup cricket than I do about Test cricket, and I truly don't know much about that. So I don't know how the scoring works -- all I know is that England had to beat the West Indies to get into the quarterfinals. They're playing in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. England got upset by Ireland, which put them in a precarious position; Ireland subsequently was eliminated.

Here's the Web site: Cricket World Cup 2011

Wikipedia will help, too: Cricket World Cup 2011

One Day International format (in this case, 50 overs)

Now, before we get to England's status, I always wonder if they score more in ODI. Let me see...

Not really much different, but there's these things called Powerplays for a certain number of overs. That reduces the number of fielders -- which would increase the scoring.

Well, anyway, England needed to beat the West Indies to get into the quarters. They play a single innings, so they put up a score, in this case 243. To win, the West Indies has to beat that score.

Summary: they came close (222), but England nailed some wickets late, and pulled out the victory. According to the play-by-play article, now South Africa has to beat Bangladesh (on the 19th, considered really likely) and India has to beat the West Indies (on the 20th, considered likely) for England to get into the quarterfinals. So they'll know by Sunday if they're in or not.

Cricket World Cup: England vs. the West Indies

Looks like the heroes for the UK were Jonathan Trott, 46 runs, and bowler Graeme Swann, who got the last wickets.