West Indies fail to qualify for World Cup

A pretty seismic moment in cricket history. The cricketing “nation” of Sobers, Richards, Lara, Holding, Marshall and Ambrose, sent packing by Holland and Scotland. I’ve followed this qualifying competition with some interest given the big names at risk, but kind of thought when it came down to it, SL and WI would come through comfortably.

If you think back to their status a few decades ago, it’s almost equivalent to Brazil failing to qualify for football’s showpiece or New Zealand being absent from the rugby version. It’s been a shocking decline over 25 years or so, most obviously in Test cricket but now the white ball team has followed suit.

Given this is the last edition of the 10-team format, it’s probably a one-off absence, but you have to ask, where now for Caribbean cricket?

Very sad.

Did not get round to it but was going to check when it was the WI followed up a 5-0 flogging of England in England with another 5-0 result in the Caribbean.

My heroes from the 60/61 series were all West Indian, aside from Wally Grout.

horace wrote:Very sad.

Did not get round to it but was going to check when it was the WI followed up a 5-0 flogging of England in England with another 5-0 result in the Caribbean.

Was 1984 and 85/86 I believe, we went there just after winning the Ashes and got demolished (as did Gatting’s nose thanks to Marshall). I think only rain prevented a hat-trick of whitewashes in ‘88 (the infamous Summer of the Four Captains).

We’ve still only won one Test series over there (the Harmison series of 2004) in over half a century!

Norfolk Ian Goode wrote:

horace wrote:Very sad.

Did not get round to it but was going to check when it was the WI followed up a 5-0 flogging of England in England with another 5-0 result in the Caribbean.

Was 1984 and 85/86 I believe, we went there just after winning the Ashes and got demolished (as did Gatting’s nose thanks to Marshall). I think only rain prevented a hat-trick of whitewashes in ‘88.

We’ve still only won one Test series over there (the Harmison series of 2004) in over half a century!

Many thanks. WI were in their absolute pomp.

That Ashes series of 1985 was the first I saw, and I expected England to always win, my illusions were quickly shattered like, well, Gatting’s nose!

They had a record run of 27 Tests unbeaten between January 1982 and December 1984. 17 were won, including 11 consecutive (all v England or Australia) in 1984. The Aussies did end their streak with a dead rubber win in Sydney at New Year 1985.

Most remarkable was their 15 years without losing a Test series, before Australia toppled them in 1995.

Pah! Limited overs circus stuff ...

PeterCS wrote:Pah! Limited overs circus stuff ...

Yeah, obviously they’re still great at Tests (when they play England at home…)

is CPL profitable?

No tears shed by me over the WIs being eliminated.

I think it’s very sad. Shame it wasn’t India ...

The decline is severe. There are probably only 2-3 top class cricketers in the current WI outfit. Forty - fifty years ago Barbados might have challenged most Test nations ... they’d certainly have done better than the current multinational WI mob.

There’s been talk in the past of whether they could split into separate island nation teams, but as it stands they’d probably all go the way of Kenya and sink without trace.

I don't lament the fall of the Windies but it WOULD be a travesty if they disappeared altogether.

skully wrote:I don't lament the fall of the Windies but it WOULD be a travesty if they disappeared altogether.

Yeah, cricket has to look after its traditional locations as well as developing new ones. Cricket is such a part of Caribbean identity and culture, and really hope they can address the decline. There was talk of the past 18 months, but this has been 30 years in the making.

There may have been things to dislike about the way they played the game at their peak, but the same goes for other great teams. And it would be good for cricket if the West Indies started producing great players again.

Unfortch American basketball has usurped a lot of the Caribbean's love of all things sport, espesh cricket.

Caribbean fervor was very much influenced by the Windies success from the late 80s to the mid 90s.

As they have tailed off (a fault of many things) that fervor has significantly diminished.

They need to throw some money at it. If only Stanford hadn’t been a crook…?

Anyway, no such mistakes from Sri Lanka, so only one past champion will be absent. A hammering for Zimbabwe means their clash with Scotland could be winner takes all.

Interesting Skully and I have such different views about WI.

He has no sympathy but yet I really mourn their passing. Think it is a generational thing. I can remember being embarrassed when we won a dead vrubber on a slow turner at the SCG.

Sorry h. One only has to look at how boring it was with the Poms bowling endless "chin music" at us yesterday.

This was what we had to tolerate for a decade and a half from the Windies. I never questioned their skill with bat and ball, but their endless short bowling made it nearly impossible to score runs - a point Allan Border made during those days.

horace wrote:Interesting Skully and I have such different views about WI.

He has no sympathy but yet I really mourn their passing. Think it is a generational thing. I can remember being embarrassed when we won a dead vrubber on a slow turner  at the SCG.

I too think the demise of the Windies is bad for cricket, however, they suffered from hubris and ignored the warning signs for too long.

Shame, but they've been really bad in LOIs recently. So much that possibly tests are their strongest suit right now. And it's just stupid to give Jason Holder a super over. He's one of the worst at it. Don't think it'd have mattered though. Also, I might be imagining stuff, but thought they nearly missed 2019 as well and got lucky with a lucky lbw given (no DRS) which gave them a narrow win by DLS over Scotland.

More disappointing that Netherlands and their army of Plunkett Shield and SA rejects have made it. Convenient to pick FC players based on some tenuous passport link when playing against a team like Zimbabwe or Nepal, who have to depend on players within their own boundaries.

They've done ****** all to progress for 27 years (yes, beaten England and SA... very ny, but again, done largely by SA and NZ imports and still no real domestic cricket) while Nepal could be a Bangladesh or Afghanistan lite, excluding the political shitshow, in the making given the interest they show in the sport. While the Zimboks are improving, though we've seen more than a share of prospective meltdowns there.

Just realised Tom Cooper is also a SA reject now.

Sad but not unexpected.

At least Netherlands are back. Amazingly there are still some old hands in the side whose names I recall from their previous WC outings such as Cooper and Barresi.

OP Tipping wrote:Sad but not unexpected.

At least Netherlands are back. Amazingly there are still some old hands in the side whose names I recall from their previous WC outings such as Cooper and Barresi.

As someone else pointed out though, driven by a discussion on the women’s football World Cup thread, it’s challenging to find an actual Dutch-born player in the side, so not sure how much it’s really doing for cricket there.