The elimination of the West Indies from the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2023 on Sunday (July 1) left the cricketing world in shock. It is worth mentioning that this will be the first time when the ODI World Cup will be played without the mighty West Indies.
The pain of the defeat and missing out on the ICC event was clearly visible on the faces of the Caribbean players. Former West Indies cricketer and currently a part of the ICC commentary panel, Ian Bishop’s “This is gut-wrenching” on air remark after the loss against Scotland further echoed the anguish.
Following the heart-breaking defeat against the Scottish side, Bishop discussed and reflected on the issues that led to the downfall of West Indies in international cricket alongside Carlos Brathwaite.
“It’s been written and signed. It’s been a dramatic fall from grace for the former two times winner of the Cricket World Cup, two time World T20 champions. Nothing has worked for them be it change of captain, change of coach, change who you want, the results have still gone against what was expected,” Bishop told Carlos Brathwaite in a post-match conversation posted by the ICC.
“West Indies are a full member nation. They must have come with a high hope but the group stages were disappointment in the level of performance certainly in the field and with the bat, it begs the question is it an acceptable level by the West Indies’ display,” he added.
Brathwaite responded to Bishop by saying that the West Indies were not convincing from the very first match of the tournament against the USA and that they somehow managed to pull it over in their favour. The veteran Caribbean all-rounder further highlighted how West Indies have been continuously failing to perform and qualify in the major events for the past few years.
“It has been a long time coming. We missed out on T20 World Cup last year. There has been troubles in the past but this is the lowest you can go. They got over against USA but they didn’t managed to roll them over or even bowl them out. It wasn’t clinical enough. As a result the same attitude then transpired and it became worse as they went on,” Brathwaite told Bishop.
“They got found out against Netherlands and Zimbabwe, who were more professional opponents. Sinaknadr Raza and Ryan Burl made them pay and then against Netherlands they were paid for their low standard. Against Scotland they bolted and this is the end result,” he added.
On being asked about the reason behind the average performance by the Men in Maroon from Bishop, Brathwaite stated that not backing players and looking for new faces to represent the nation is one of the major issue that is causing trouble in the team.
“There are lot of issues. Sherfane Rutherford, Oshaine Thomas and Fabien Allen were in the 2019 World Cup team and four years later you are looking for a new crop. You can’t continuously do that.” Brathwaite replied Bishop.
