On Monday West Indies cricket fans received a harsh reality check on the status of their team in the current hierarchy of international one day cricket when Bangladesh inflicted a sound thrashing in their fifth round encounter at the 2019 ICC World Cup.
As usually is the case in tournaments of this nature, the West Indies teams of late tend to get off to a good start, when in fact they are only flattering to deceive. The West Indians began the competition with a convincing demolition of a Pakistani side which appears to have a split personality of either being very bad or very good. Following their seven-wicket victory, the West Indies, for a brief shining moment, were actually perched atop of the points table.
The slide down the points table – they are currently in seventh place in the ten team tournament – commenced in their second game. Chasing the very attainable target of 288 runs, the West Indies lost by 15 runs, following an undisciplined approach at the wicket, in a match they should have won quite easily, and thus, cement their role as the dark horse in the event. Earlier in the contest, having reduced the mighty Australians to 38 for four, they failed to press home an excellent position.
After sharing the points with South Africa in a rain affected match, the West Indies received a sound beating from the hosts, England, last Friday, with Skipper Joe Root’s unbeaten even century leading the way in an eight-wicket triumph. A meagre West Indian total of 212 was never going to present any real challenges to the highly ranked English team.
Monday’s game was the opportunity for the West Indies to separate themselves from the chase pack looking to dislodge India, England, Australia or New Zealand for one of the four semi-final spots. With Shai Hope‘s 96 leading the way, the West Indies posted a respectable score of 321 for eight from their 50 overs. However, it was not enough, as Bangladesh completed their highest ever ODI run chase, winning by seven wickets, with 8.3 overs to spare. For those keeping score, it was the fifth straight loss to Bangladesh, and the eighth in ten encounters within the last year.
The tactic of bowling short, which worked well against Pakistan seemed to play right into the hands of the Bangladeshi batsmen who were well prepared to deal with it, as the West Indians, who suffered from a lack of ideas, spent a long day in the field.
The West Indies, with only one victory, and four matches to play, now face the harsh reality of an early elimination from the tournament. The gauntlet includes games against two unbeaten teams, New Zealand and India, and a challenging schedule of three games over the last eight days of the round robin phase.
Their prospects of winning those four matches and reaching the semi-finals are grim to say the least, or as Captain Jason Holder lamented, “tough.” As the saying goes, “Nice words are not true and true words are not nice,” and the present West Indies bowling attack is lacklustre at best and not capable of dismissing (or, restricting batsmen, as in ODIs) international sides for low totals on a regular basis, and until such time arises, West Indian fans will just have to accept the fact that their team is just not good enough to compete with the top tier sides.
Whilst we expect the team to continue to play hard, the reality of winning the remaining four matches and qualifying for the semi-finals are remote. The core of young players, Evin Lewis, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer and Nicolas Pooran, who will most likely be in the next World Cup team, should seize this opportunity to glean all the knowledge and experience they can absorb from this tournament.
The search for and the development of top quality international bowlers capable of defending totals posted by our batsmen should be the number one priority of the West Indies coaching staff.
