Move over, Yousuf Raza Gilani and Manmohan Singh. The vagaries of the round-robin system has achieved what countless peace talks couldn’t and somehow contrived a situation where India is forced to root for Pakistan. Pakistan is definitely through to the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy and, depending on the results tomorrow, will be joined by either Australia or India.

Since Australia has a better net run rate than India, they could theoretically qualify even if they lose to Pakistan and India beat the West Indies. But for India, the choice is stark and undeniable. They have to get down on their knees and pray that Pakistan not only beat Australia but absolutely murder them. For the first time in our sixty-odd year history, Pakistan will have the undying support of one billion Indians.

Now, I won’t be so uncharitable as to say that Pakistan’s cricketers will deliberately lose to Australia to deny India a spot in the semi finals, but one has to wonder if Pakistani fans will root against their own team.

Meanwhile, in the other group, New Zealand just defeated England, thereby insuring that Sri Lanka will go home along with hosts South Africa (well, actually the South Africans will just stay at home but you know what I mean). Thus, I incorrectly predicted three of the four semi finalists. See this post for my predictions and come back here to mock my fortune-telling abilities.