WORLD CUP

It's politics really more than talent.  Their first choice XI is easily good enough to compete with anyone in the World and would never have gotten themselves into the situation where they had to qualify but they just don't play for them.

The main issue Windies have full stop is that they can't get their best players to turn out.  If you look at IPL, Big Bash etc there are plenty of high quality West Indian players knocking around but they rarely turn out in international cricket.  When they do they're pretty good - they are the defending T20 World Champions after all.  But there's always been an issue with what the Windies cricket board was prepared to pay their players (even Richards, Lloyd etc threatened to go on strike at times) and that's just exacerbated by modern T20 offerring a much more tempting alternative.  It's a sad tale really but the truth is they've walked this qualification tournament anyway (as they should of course).  Even if they had lost to Scotland it would have taken a freak set of results for them not to qualify for the World Cup.I think Scotland's tilt at qualification is a bigger story than it's being reported. With so few places up for grabs no one gave them much of a hope to even come close - to come within a win of pulling it off was a fantastic effort really.  I have a mate involved in cricket up there - constantly battling just to keep enough interest in the game so clubs stay alive and it makes a massive difference if the national team has some kind of profile so it's a big deal.

The really big game is tomorrow - Ireland v Afghanistan basically straight up for a place in the World Cup.  Afghanistan are the best story in World cricket and they have some genuinely world class players (albeit without much depth) so I'd rather they qualified.  It would be more interesting.  Ireland are an admirable side but they are basically a team of workmanlike county pros who wouldn't offer a great deal of interest or threat in a World Cup Tournament.  Afghanistan have the potential to actually make some noise in the tournament and turn some big names over.

From the point of view of the World Cup as a competition I think that's a good result.  Bangladesh are now a genuinely good one day side these days and it's no surprise when they beat established teams, Afghanistan could conceivably compete and potentially upset a few teams and if Windies stars actually show up then they would be a trendy darkhorse pick to go a long way in the tournament. So I think it's good that there shouldn't be too many uncompetitive games. Although really in the long term they just need to redo the format to accommodate both more teams and more competitive cricket.  It shouldn't be that difficult.