Apocalypso Now: The only way for West Indies cricket is up

West Indies cricket can’t get any worse

Sri Lanka having to grind its way through the ongoing qualifiers in Zimbabwe in order to participate in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s World Cup later in India, is seen as a matter of shame for a country that won the 1996 World Cup and were 2007 and 2011 finalists.  This is because Sri Lanka did not rank in the top eight of the ODI table to gain automatic qualification.

Similar things have also been said of West Indies cricket not just in these qualifiers, but for a while now. The West Indies cricket team not qualifying for the ICC CWC 2023 is not surprising, if you look at it.

Both Sri Lanka and West Indies had to go through the group stage of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia to make it to the Super 12 stage of the tournament. While Sri Lanka made it, the West Indies did not. For the upcoming World Cup, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe are expected to make it to the main tournament.

“It’s a sad state of affairs,” said a former West Indies captain to your correspondent on Sunday morning. He did not want to be named.

This decline of the mighty West Indies hit a new low on Saturday following their first ever defeat to Scotland in four ODIs over 24 years, in the Super Six stage of the qualifying tournament.

West Indies struggled, and were  all out at 181. Scotland reached the target easily to win by seven wickets. West Indies is languishing at fifth place in the Super Six points table, just above Oman and below Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Scotland, and the Netherlands, in that order, showing the sorry state of affairs of this team.

In the first stage of the qualifiers, West Indies going down to a resurgent Zimbabwe was not as surprising as failing to defend a tall score of 374 in Harare against the Netherlands, which  went  on to win in the Super Over with Logan van Beek emerging the hero, smashing a boundary in each of the six deliveries — 4, 6, 4, 6, 6, 4 — off Jason Holder, taking the Dutch to their first victory against the Windies in six face-offs over 16 years. Van Beek also took two wickets in the match.

Incidentally, van Beek’s heroics came against the team for which his grandfather Simpson ‘Sammy’ Clairmonte Guillen, wicketkeeper-batsman, played five Tests in the 1950s.

West Indies is but a pale shadow of its former self, in a game that they ruled, winning the first two World Cups in 1975 and 1979, and being finalists in 1983 when they lost to India. The way the West Indies entertained cricket lovers, the colourful manner in which they played cricket, their joyful celebrations and high-fives made even the fans of the losing side smile.

When I met Carl Hooper, former West Indies all-rounder of the ’80s and ‘90s in Adelaide during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup last year for an interview for moneycontrol.com, Hooper was deeply disturbed by what was happening in Windies cricket.

Hooper had said: “We were a great side. Clive Lloyd put together a powerful team in 1976 and handed it over to Viv Richards. Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Joel Garner, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Jeff Dujon, these are great players. It is a shame to see how we have gone from that to this. Maybe we need some drastic changes, not just in coaching, but from the board down.’’

He had said then that he was open to serve West Indies cricket in any capacity as a coach. “I have made my life here in Australia for the last 20-odd years, but I’ve also been involved in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). But you want to be sure that if you get on board, you will be working with people who are moving together in the right direction.”

Hooper was appointed assistant coach for the white ball format of the game for three ODIs in the UAE prior to these qualifiers.

Commentator and former India leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan agreed with Hooper, and said, “The betterment of one of the best sides has to be a collective effort. Right from the ground staff to the chairman of each and every island cricket board, everybody has to work in unison, which does not seem to be the case currently.”

According to Sivaramakrishnan, one of the reasons for the decline of Windies cricket is that its best cricketers make a fair bit of money playing T20 cricket in various leagues across the world, and hence they are not to play for the Caribbean national team.

“You can make a good living now playing in different T20 leagues across the world. Our board has never stood in the way of players on this front. But it is disappointing that some of the top players are not there in the national team in major tournaments,” Hooper had said regarding this.

Sivaramakrishnan made his Test debut in the West Indies and has quite a few friends there, including Haynes, who’s now the chairman of the West Indies cricket selection committee.

"They have not invested in the younger generation and in the infrastructure. What used to be fast pitches have started turning now. Pitches in Guyana, Trinidad, and Antigua used to assist spin but not Barbados and Jamaica. Also, they need to make cricket financially attractive for the youth," he added.

Sivaramakrishnan said that compounding matters for Windies is the fact that other nations are getting better as they get worse: “Zimbabwe, who were out of the reckoning for a while, is on the rise again. The Netherlands and the Scotland teams have also improved.”

Speaking of Haynes, Sivaramakrishnan said, “He can pick only the best available talent. If they don’t perform, what can a selector do?”

Now, there is only one way the Windies can go — up. They can start by doing well enough to rise in the rankings and automatically qualify for ICC global events and maybe entertain the crowds in the manner they once did.