- By Himanshu Badola
- Sat, 01 Jul 2023 07:30 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
JE Sports Desk: West Indies cricket have suffered a massive blow as they will not be taking part in the upcoming ODI World Cup in India later this year. It will be the first time that West Indies will miss out on the enormous tournament.
The disappointing sequence took place on Saturday after their seven-victory defeat against Scotland in the super six-game of the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 Qualifiers in Harare.
The two-time World champions have played every ODI and T20 World Cup so far but will not be there for the marquee event this year which is a tough and bitter pill to swallow for them.
Talking about the game, West Indies were asked to bat first and were four down all of a sudden inside the first 10 overs and couldn't recover from it as they were bowled out for just 181 runs in 43.5 overs.
Brandon McMullen was the standout bowler for Scotland who took three wickets for 32 runs as he ripped the opponent's top order apart.
Chris Sole, Mark Watt, and Chris Greaves picked two wickets each with Safyaan Sharif getting a wicket as well.
Chasing the target, it took 43.3 overs for Scotland to register a seven-wicket win to give an upset to West Indies. Matthew Cross' 74* and Brandon McMullen's 69 runs were almost enough to get their team through
"To be honest, it's not one thing I can put my finger on. We certainly let ourselves down in the tournament. We need to look at how we start our innings definitely. We knew it would be challenging. The toss is always crucial but we need to find a way to counter that early movement," skipper Shai Hope said after the game.
"Every single captain who wins the toss decides to bowl first and we needed to counter that early morning moisture. It really has to do with the attitude. The fielding is an attitude according to me, catches will be dropped and misfields will happen, that's a part of the game and I feel that we did not give 100% effort every time, we did it in patches. It starts with the foundation - from back home, the preparation needs to be better. We cannot come here and expect to be an elite team without preparation."
You can't expect to wake up and be a great team. We need to give the West Indians fans something to cheer about. We have two more games and we need to find a way to bounce back. The talent is there, I always believe that, but we need to translate that into consistent performances. They played really well, especially their bowling. How disciplined they were, we need to learn from them. Credit to them. We have to understand each other even more and we have to go one way and that's up [on working with Daren Sammy]," Hope added.
West Indies' run in ODI World Cup Qualifiers
1. WI beat USA by 39 runs (Group A game, Harare)
2. WI beat Nepal by 101 runs (Group A game, Harare)
3. WI lost against Zimbabwe by 35 runs (Group A game, Harare)
4. WI lost in the Super Over against Netherlands (Group A game, Harare)
5. WI lost against Scotland by 7 wickets (Super Sixes Match 3, Harare)
Shai Hope-led West Indies have two games in hand in the tournament as they face Oman on July 5 and Sri Lanka on July 7.