West Indies failed to qualify for the ICC World Cup 2023 in India after losing their Super Six match in the qualifiers against Soctland by 7 wickets
2-time champions West Indies have failed to make it to the ICC World Cup 2023 after losing the Super Six game of the qualifiers against Scotland by 7 wickets. After being asked to bat first, the Shai Hope-led side was bundled out for a paltry 181 in 43.5 overs. All-rounder Jason Holder top-scored with 79-ball 45 Romario Shepherd (36 off 43) and Brandon King (run-a-ball 22) were other notable contributors.
In reply, Scotland chased down the target with 39 balls to spare. After losing Christopher McBride off the very first ball of the innings, wicketkeeper-batter Matthew Cross and Brandon McMullen stitched a match-winning 125-run stand to help their team script a clinical win over the West Indies.
The 2023 edition will be the first men’s ODI World Cup without two-time champions West Indies. The massive blow comes right after former captain and 2-time T20 World Cup winner Darren Sammy took over as the team’s head coach.
“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,” said West Indies captain Shai Hope at the post-match presentation.
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“The toss is always crucial but we need to find a way to counter that early movement. 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 mis-fields 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.
“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 Indian fans something to cheer about. We have two more games and we need to find a way to bounce back,” he added.
Having lost a crucial encounter in the Super Over eliminator to the Netherlands in a Group A match, which followed a loss to Zimbabwe, the West Indies entered the Super Six round with no points and a net run rate which was inferior to the other teams.
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West Indies were always dependent on the outcome of other matches.
West Indies did have four points having earlier beaten the USA (by 35 runs) and Nepal (101 runs), but the wheels came off rapidly owing to poor cricket across departments.
But since they lost to both Zimbabwe and the Netherlands — who both qualified for the Super Six from Group A — the West Indies carried no points further.
