THE West Indies Team stands highly likely to be left out of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Champions Trophy tournament in 2017. However, current president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Dave Cameron is not sweating over the matter as he feels that the likely omission will be an eye-opener for players.
“It may be a wake-up call to some of our players. Yes, we have some talented players, we have some players who have done well for themselves but as a team, as the West Indies cricket team, we have not done well enough.”
He feels that the hot and cold results that the Caribbean side have been providing have finally caught up with them and they are due to pay the price. “It’s part and parcel of not performing year in year out that we have found ourselves in this position. All we (WICB) can say is that all our programmes have to be geared towards making West Indies cricket better. I don’t think that we do.”
The WICB boss indicated that so far, the time is running out for the Maroon Side, now under the captaincy of Jason Holder, to make the cut for the 8-Nation Championship. “We are probably about 90 percent sure that we won’t make the Champions Trophy at this point in time because I’m not sure if you are aware, but Pakistan have actually beaten Sri Lanka in the series and have moved a couple a points ahead of us.”
The top seven sides in the world (Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan), plus hosts England, will compete at the next 50-overs tournament and the cut-off date for qualification is September 30, 2015.
However, the West Indies have a chance to tussle with Pakistan for the final spot in the series should the Tri-nation series between them and host nation Zimbabwe set for the August-September period go on as planned.
The WICB boss, however, says that the ink has not hit the dotted line yet for that series, which is seen as the West Indies’ last hope at the 2017 tournament.” That Tri-Series against Pakistan is not totally signed off as yet and that is the challenge we face.”
Moving forward, however, the WICB head indicated that they are putting plans in place to combat/fix the problems plaguing the sport, pointing directly to the Professional Cricket League (PCL).
“It’s a wakeup call to all of us that we have to change how we are doing things and the PCL is change in that direction. Not everyone agrees; people feel that it shouldn’t be opened up to all players everywhere but we believe that we need to find the best solution to having the best players playing and competing.”

By Stephan Sookram