(Cricket news) Two-time champions, West Indies will not be present in the ODI World Cup for the first time in history. The current squad couldn’t keep up the legacy that the former players left behind and showcased a shameful performance throughout the Qualifiers of ICC WC23. The West Indies team will not be traveling to India for the tournament which begins on October 5 after Scotland gave them the hear-brak and trashed them out of the tournament in Super-six. 

The game was a must-win for the West Indies as they failed to perform in the league matches of Qualifiers, but after they were asked to bat first in their do-or-die match they couldn’t manage to post a defending target and just imposed 181 runs in 43.5 overs. On the opponent side,  McMullen provided the all-around performance and starred with both bat and ball as he took three wickets for Scotland and built up a steady inning of 69 off 106 balls.

Scotland chased down the target in 43.3 overs to end the Windies’ odyssey of the World Cup. Though the West Indies have two more games remaining in the Super Six, they can only gather 4 points out of it if they win which won’t help them to qualify for the World Cup However, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe already have six points each as the carried their 4 pints from the league stage and each of them won their first match of Super-six. 

Having lost against Zimbabwe and Netherlands in the group stage, they carried forward no points into the Super Six and were required to win all three of their games to even have a possibility to qualify for the World Cup. With their loss against Scotland in their first Super Six fixture today, and after the victories of Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka in their respective initial games of Super-six, the odyssey of West Indies in the World Cup completely vanished. 

Over the span of the qualifiers, a common theme was West Indies’ slack fielding. The captain and coach both stressed the dropped chances and that the West Indies needed to improve. Additionally, the batters were guilty of not building early starts in the initial overs and consecutively losing wickets instead of building reliable partnerships throughout and letting the momentum slip away.

Captain Shai Hope was quoted saying at the post-match presentation, “We need to look at all dimensions. We have let ourselves down at this tournament. We have to go one way from here and that is up. I don’t think we gave that 100% effort every single time. We only did it in patches.” 

“Hope also felt the build-up for the tournament was not ideal. The team had traveled to the United Arab Emirates and played day and night games but the games in the Qualifier started at 9 am local time. The preparation needs to be better. We can’t expect to be an elite team without that backing from the cricket board at home,”

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