Double after 30?

There is an old adage that to get a good gauge of the score that a team is going to get, double their score at 30.

Last night India were at 197/1 off 30 overs last night, and yet they only managed to get 296.

As I mentioned in a couple of previous posts, India have not managed to score double their 30 over score once in the last 2 years. Which makes me ask, is double after 30 realistic.

I've gone through the first innings of every game in the world cup and looked at the halfway point in terms of runs.

Of the 27 matches in which the first inning was completed 9 times the total score was double or more than double the 30 over score.

The team that left their run the latest was New Zealand, in the Taylor blitz against Pakistan, where they scored the same in the last 12 overs as they did in the first 38. I remember that clearly, as I went to bed after 34 overs and woke up expecting to hear that New Zealand had lost.

The worst was Bangladesh against West Indies, where they were looking reasonable at 30/2 off 6, but then collapsed to 58 all out.

Overall the mark is actually normally close to 28: 13 times it was between 26 and 31. All of the top 8 teams except England and India have had at least one game that they have doubled after 30, but of the other 6 only the Netherlands have managed it. (although Canada haven't batted first in a match yet).

If we were to look for a guideline, perhaps we could say double after 29 for a test playing nation against another test playing nation, but go under that for a non-test nation, and over that for a test nation against a non-test nation.