Gutless Windies Will Miss Cricket World Cup for First Time
Scotland stun the Caribbean side to send the two-time World Cup champions tumbling to rock bottom
The West Indies limped out of the World Cup qualifiers following Saturday’s shock seven-wicket defeat to Scotland in Zimbabwe. Their humiliating defeat means that the Windies won’t be competing for top honours at this year’s prestigious competition, the first time that the two-time champions have failed to reach the main competition.
An insipid display by Shai Hope’s troops saw them misfiring in the middle to be whittled out for a pitiful 181 in 43.5 overs, with only former skipper Jason Holder (45) and Romario Shepherd (36) showing any fight at the crease.
Scotland were magnificent in racing to 183-3 in 43.3 overs, despite opener Chris McBride being sent back to the pavilion for a golden duck — caught by Kevin Sinclair off Holder’s opening delivery of the innings.
The Windies stuttered through their group matches, which included being upset by the Netherlands on the Super Over, to reach the Super Sixes stage.
Yet in their opening game, the Windies were pretty useless with both bat and ball to suffer their first-ever ODI defeat to Scotland.
They now have two pretty meaningless matches to play, against Netherlands and Zimbabwe, to round off their Super Six group campaign.
Hope admitted: “We let ourselves down in the entire tournament, and there’s not one thing I can put my finger on. The preparation needs to be better — we can’t come here and expect to be an elite team without preparation.
“We need to find a way to bounce back. We can’t expect to wake up one morning and be a great team, we all have to go one way and that is up.”
The Windies saw ducks for both Johnson Charles and Shamarh Brooks, as they slipped to a pitiful 81-6. But a solid seventh-wicket partnership of 77 from 96 deliveries involving Holder and Shepherd breathed much-needed lift into the Caribbean team.
They then crumbled, scoring just 23 more runs for their final three wickets to set Scotland an extremely achievable total to chase.
Scotland simply soared against a tame bowling attack. Opener Brandon McMullen (69) and Matthew Cross (74no) piled on the misery for the Windies, reaching their target with 39 balls to spare to leave the Caribbean outfit hitting rock bottom on the international stage.
This year’s competition has been a humbling experience for the Windies, who clinched the opening two editions of the coveted 50-over World Cup in 1975 and 1979.
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