Directions for the next 5 questions:
Sixteen teams have been invited to participate in the ABC Gold Cup cricket tournament. The tournament is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the teams are divided into two groups. Each group consists of eight teams, with each team playing every other team in its group exactly once. At the end of the first stage, the top four teams from each group advance to the second stage while the rest are eliminated. The second stage comprises of several rounds. A round involves one match for each team. The winner of a match in a round advances to the next round, while the loser is eliminated, The team that remains undefeated in the second stage is declared the winner and claims the Gold Cup.
The tournament rules are such that each match results in a winner and a loser with no possibility of a tie. In the first stage a team earns one point for each win and no points for a loss. At the end of the first stage teams in each group are ranked on the basis of total points to determine the qualifiers advancing to the next stage. Ties are resolved by a series of complex tie-breaking rules so that exactly four teams from each group advance to the next stage.
The minimum number of wins needed for a team in the first stage to guarantee its advancement to the next stage is:
Let us first try to find the maximum number of points with which a team cannot advance to the second stage.
For this to happen the top five teams should have highest possible equal number of points and one team does not advance after the tie breaker.
To maximize the points of top 5 teams all of the top 5 teams should win their matches with the bottom 3 teams. Now each team has 3 points.
The top 5 teams play 5C2 = 10 matches among themselves. There are 10 points to be won from these 10 matches.
Now as all the top 5 teams should have equal number of points each team gets 2 points from these games.
In all each top 5 team gets 3+2 = 5 points each.
In this case after getting 5 points also one of the top 5 teams will not advance to the second round.
Thus the maximum number of points with which a team cannot advance to the second stage is 5.
Therefore at least 6 wins are required for a team to guarantee its advancement to the next stage.
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