By Nikhila Natarajan
New York, Nov 7 : Cricket junkies have the Donald Trump versus Joe Biden result all figured out, in terms that they understand only too well. Trump’s run rate isn’t ticking up, the asking rate is climbing and the fat lady has sung.
“That’s all there is to it! His asking rate in Pennsylvania is 8 per over, he’s at 2 or 3. Biden’s asking rate in Pennsylvania is around 6 per over, he’s going at about 8 or 9,” Aravind, an Indian-American cricket obsessor from Jersey City told IANS.
Four days after the US election, the presidential race remains firmly in the ‘knowable’ but not ‘callable’ territory because of a cocktail of reasons ranging all the way from shifting goalposts of statistical rigour to worries around backlash from the incumbent US president and the long, hard work of counting mailing votes.
“It’s so obviously for one candidate and they’re not calling it, it’s just nuts!”, another cricket aficionado, also from New Jersey, told IANS.
“Think Virat Kohli’s 52-ball century against the Aussies in 2013, think AB De Villiers’ 31-ball ton against the West Indies in the 2nd ODI at Johannesburg,” he explained, in cricket lingo.
Cricket lovers understand Trump’s asking rate in terms of the world’s best batting performances and the incumbent seems nowhere close.
In must-win Pennsylvania, Biden is doing the numbers that Trump will need to carry the state.
From the time that mail in ballots began getting counted, Biden is winning those at a rate of about 80 to 90 per cent, which is what has put him into a 0.5 percentage point lead now. State law mandates a recount if the margin between candidates is less than 0.5 per cent.
Mail ballots are going for Biden at a rate of 91 per cent and this is being repeated in county after county, it’s not an isolated pattern in Philadelphia alone, the state’s biggest city.
Biden leads Trump by just over 28,000 votes in Pennsylvania. Now, there’s 270,000 estimated remaining votes to be counted in the state and 20,000 of them from Philly alone.
A Pennsylvania loss means curtains for Trump, a Pennsylvania win is sufficient but not essential for Biden. He’s leading in Arizona, in Nevada, in Georgia too.
Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from IANS service.