The actual world cup started today, 22 October, the second round of the T20 World Cup 2022. The first match between the defending T20 World cup winner mighty Australia and the runner-up of the last T20 World Cup 2021 New Zealand. It will be very exciting as these two rivals will face each other again in the T20 World Cup after 10 months.
But before that, there was a first-round match between the qualifiers to get into the super 12. There were 8 teams in that first round and out of 8 matches there were two Teams who have won the T20 World cup in the past. Yes, I am talking about Sri Lanka and West Indies. The mighty West Indies has won this T20 World cup trophy two times in the past.
The sad point is that the West Indies have lost two matches against Scotland and Ireland and found themselves out of the T20 World Cup 2022.
West Indies is not able to qualify for the next round, i.e. super 12 is a big upset in this edition of T20 World cup 2022.
West Indies batters were not able to play well in the middle overs and they lost both matches in those middle overs from 7 to 16 overs these 9 overs are very crucial in a T20 game.
During this phase of the match, usually, spinners are bowling and West Indies batters were exposed to their inability to handle the spin and score against good spinners.
West Indies batters were apparently struggling against spinners, especially against Ireland. The game against Ireland was a must-win situation for West Indies to stay in the contest.
West Indies won the toss and elected to bat first however, they could only score 146 runs in 20 overs. They were unable to score runs against Delany who took 3 wickets in the middle overs by giving just 16 runs in his 4 overs.
It has been noted that West Indies batters are struggling against the spinner before the world cup as well. They were not able to score good runs and their batting has been a concern for a few months.
A few decisions taken by captain Nicholas Pooran during the match were also surprising like bowling changes. He himself was not able to score good runs and that can also impact on the other players.
The captain should lead from the front.
The mighty West Indies have been out of the world cup and the team management will have to quickly analyse the reasons and rectify them as the earliest.
Their coach Simmons said after the match “Yeah, that’s how things are. I think we haven’t been playing good enough cricket to be there. We have the batsmen, the capabilities, we just haven’t been putting it together. Our bowlers are showing up nine out of ten times, but the batters haven’t really shown up,” Simmons said.
“I think all the batters will be disappointed in what they’ve produced, not just at the World Cup but just before the World Cup and everything like that. We need to go back, and batsmen need to take a look at themselves and work out how we score 170, 180 runs to be in the game because the bowlers are doing their job,”
The ODI world cup in going to be played next year and the West Indies team needs to prepare themselves for the same.