Sunday was a bleak day for both the Southern Express representing Sri Lanka, and the Lahore Lions representing Pakistan at the CLT20 in India.
The Lahore Lions went into their match against the Northern Knights from New Zealand, knowing that a second victory in two days, following the win over the Mumbai Indians on Saturday, would secure their passage into the competition proper.
The Southern Express on the other hand knew that they absolutely had to win their qualifying match against the Mumbai Indians, of they were to retain any hope at all of making it out of the qualifying group.
The two sides who will now meet at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur on Tuesday both came up woefully short of their targets.
Having gained a relatively comfortable six wicket victory against the twice winners Mumbai Indians on Saturday. The Lions went into their contest with the Northern Knights with their tails up, and expectant of success.
However, they never came near to recording the win that they needed against the Kiwis, and although they can still qualify, even they lose again on Tuesday, the only likely scenario that would see them progress, due to their poor overall run rate, compared to their rivals, would be to beat the Express, and hope that the do them a favour by beating Mumbai.
Mathematically, the Sri Lanka T20 champions are not yet eliminated from the tournament, but it would take two results of unlikely proportions, to see them squeeze through. The first requirement would be for them to record their first win, after two losses.
They, like the Lions would also require the Knights to beat the Indians. Southern Express, however, would need both results to be of massively unlikely one sided, to get through on overall run rate.