The World Cup qualifiers for the 2023 ICC World Cup are at the business end, with 6 teams in the mix fighting for those last two spots for the showpiece event that will be held in India later this year in October. Before the tournament began it was a pretty straightforward assumption that the West Indies and Sri Lanka would be the overwhelming favorites to qualify for the grand event. The former World Champions have the players and the quality and would only be a matter of the before their progress would be sealed.
But if the matches are anything to go by, it has thrown an absolute surprise to the point that West Indies have officially crashed out of the World Cup after a humiliating loss to minnows Scotland earlier today. This is their third straight loss in a row after earlier tasting defeat against Zimbabwe and Netherlands. To add to this, it will be consecutive ICC tournaments that the Windies will not be a part of. A side with such rich cricketing history is now in the doldrums facing embarrassment.
West Indies Cricket: So how did it come to this? Why has the fall from grace been so spectacular. We take a look at the reasons why!!
1. Poor fielding
The West Indies batting until the Scotland game had actually been just about fine, with the likes of Hope and Pooran getting the runs and setting a platform for the rest of the lot to go bonkers towards the end. However, the fielding of the Windies was anything but decent. In the three games that they lost, they have contrived to drop close to at least 20 catches.
In the game vs Netherlands alone they managed to grass 13 catches, in a game that they had absolutely no business losing. Good fielding is the difference between an ordinary side and a great cricketing side, and the fielding that was displayed by the West Indies was anything but good.
Image Credits: Outlook India
2. Poor leadership in the West Indies team
This has been one of the major problems faced by the West Indies, and one that has been going on for years. There is a genuine dearth of quality leaders in the side, and the ones that are or were appointed in the past just did not seem anywhere near the level required to lead the team to greater heights.
The likes of Jason Holder and Nicholas Pooran, who are quality players on a given day, have had pretty embarrassing records as captain, and to underline the lack of leaders in the side, the Windies appointed Shai Hope as captain, a player with no discernible experience as captain, and that showed throughout the tournament, with some of his calls leaving quite a lot to be desired. If you do not have a strong leader, you cannot build a strong team.
Image Credits: Hindustan Times
3. Unable to make the switch from T20 to ODI
Everyone knows that the Windies are much more comfortable in the shortest format of the game because of their exposure and high number of participation in various franchise cricket leagues around the world. What everyone also knows is that they are not exactly great shakes in the remaining two formats of the game. While in this tournament they started off decently with the bat, they fell off rather spectacularly in all departments because of their inability to play according to the situation.
Bar Shai Hope and Pooran upto a certain extent, none of the batters who got starts were able to make it count in key situations. That also creeped into their bowling. The likes of Brandon King, Rovman Powell, and Shamarh Brooks are supposed to be the ones who would be there on the pitch for longer times, instead they all were guilty of throwing away their wickets. The Windies have a lot of things to look back on as they lick their wounds on what has been a shambolic tournament for them so far
