Explained: How West Indies failed to grab ODI World Cup ticket with debacle at the qualifiers

“We cannot come here and expect to be an elite team without preparation. You can’t expect to wake up one morning and be a great team,” said West Indies ODI skipper Shai Hope after his side’s shocking seven-wicket defeat at the hands of Scotland in their first game of the Super Sixes of the ongoing ICC ODI World Cup 2023 qualifiers in Zimbabwe on July 01. With this loss, their third in a row, the two-time world champions succumbed to a new low. West Indies, the winner of the first two 50-over World Cups, bowed out of CWC’23 qualifiers. Thus, they have failed to grab a place in this year’s ODI World Cup in India.

All the 90s kids heard innumerable tales of West Indies’ envious bowling attack, who left the cricketing world in awe by mastering the Bodyline Bowling, as their predecessor generation took pride in sheding light on the Caribbean dominance. The late 70s saw West Indies become a formidable force that won the ODI World Cup twice in a row, under Clive Lloyd. A large part of their success was due to Sir Vivian Richards’ mavericks. The ball left the bat in a jiffy from Richards’ willow with him nonchalantly chewing gums and making a mockery of several bowling attacks. 

In the following years, West Indies gave plenty to the world of cricket by introducing the likes of Brian Lara, Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, etc. Later, the Kieron Pollards, Sunil Narines, Dwayne Bravos and more took the mantle forward as the Windies mastered T20Is; the most unpredictable format.

Slowly and steadily, the likes of Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Michael Holding, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes were replaced by Lara, Gayle, Pollard, etc. as West Indies remained relevant in white-ball format; although becoming a T20I specialist team from a once-dominant ODI force.

Sadly, nothing is clicking for them at present. Surely, West Indies cricket is at its lowest and their miraculous downfall has left cricket lovers in disbelief of their overwhelming success in the past; especially in ODIs. As the Windies have dominated the 50-over game in the past, it is shocking to see their downfall in the shorter format. However, their CWC’23 qualifiers’ debacle has just put more light on their longstanding negligence to the format. Let us decode their CWC’23 qualifiers’ struggles:

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EXPLAINED: HOW WI’s CWC’23 qualifiers’ debacle was always on the cards

One of the main reasons for the West Indies’ failures was their sloppy fielding. After the Scotland loss, Hope said, “The fielding is an attitude according to me, catches will be dropped and misfields will happen, that’s part of the game and I feel that we did not give 100% effort every time, we did it in patches.” Meanwhile, head coach Daren Sammy remained critical of his side’s poor fielding efforts from the start of the tournament. Not the one to mince his words, Sammy labelled his side as the “worst fielding team”.  In their game versus Zimbabwe, Hope & Co. dropped as many as five catches. Unacceptable!

Shamarh Brooks’ illness along with Yannick Cariah’s injury added to West Indies’ woes. They were forced to tinker with their team combination and strategies. Cariah’s absence meant they were without their only leg-spinner and couldn’t capitalise on his pre-tournament form.

Some of West Indies’ tactics made little sense to many. For example, Hope’s decision to resort to Jason Holder in the Super Over versus Netherlands made heads turn. Holder’s match figures were a decent 10-0-59-0. However, he has often been taken to the cleaners in the death overs. As a result, Dutchman Logan van Beek slammed him for 30 runs as the two-time winners lost the game.

Most importantly, the preparations in the run-up to the qualifiers, in Zimbabwe, were never up to the mark. As many as six out of the 15 that travelled to Zimbabwe – Kyle Mayers, Holder, Powell, Alzarri Joseph, Shepherd and Akeal Hosein – were not part of the Windies’ series versus hosts UAE ahead of the qualifiers. Thus, it also meant that they interacted with their newly-appointed coach Sammy for the first time during the ICC tournament. 

Moreover, West Indies’ last bilateral ODI series win versus the current top seven teams — notably India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, and England — came way back in 2014. Their inability to be calculative with the bat, match-winning spinners and dwindling fielding standards have forced them to fall as low as they have. Thus, the writing was on the wall for long. 2023 just became the year where they made it official. 

It is to be noted that West Indies have failed to make any mark in ICC events since their T20 World Cup 2016 triumph in India. In 2017, they could not participate in the Champions Trophy in England and Wales. In 2019, they won only two out of nine games in the ODI World Cup. They have failed miserably in the two cycles of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) in 2019-21 and 2021-23 respectively. In the 2021 T20 World Cup, they bowed out of the Super 12 round with a sole win (over Bangladesh). In the following edition, in 2022, Nicholas Pooran & Co. were out of the qualifiers and the script remained the same in this year’s ODI WC qualifiers.

Phew! West Indies’ appetite for ODI success has gone down drastically. It still remains a tough pill to swallow but is one that was always coming.