It’s A Shame That West Indies Couldn’t Qualify For Champions Trophy: Sir Curtly Ambrose
Dec 31, 2018 at 1:56 PM
Curtly Ambrose, one of the lethal pace bowlers that West Indies have ever produced, said that the team not qualifying for the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 is a shame and a bitter pill to swallow,
“It’s really a shame,” Ambrose told The Royal Gazette. “It is sad. I never thought the time would come when we, as a West Indies team, would miss a Champions Trophy. It’s not a nice feeling at all, but that’s the way it is. We are not playing as well as we can so it’s up to us as a nation, and the cricketers themselves, to bring back this tradition we have to get West Indies cricket near the top again.”
“Potential and talent have never been the question,” he said. “It’s just we’ve not kept the results that we want. From time to time there have been some good performances, but we’re not consistent enough. To move up the rankings you have to be consistent with both games and with both teams and until we start to do that we will remain the way we are at the moment. We just need to be more consistent,” he added.
West Indies have always been a part of the tournament that kicked off with the name of Wills International Cup in the year 1998 but this time, they will miss the ‘Mini World Cup’, as they were not the part of top eight teams in the rankings, as on the cut-off date 30 September 2015.
It was a big surprise, as Bangladesh overpowered them, to qualify after a period of 11 years.
Bangladesh last played the Champions Trophy in 2006 and have failed to qualify since then but this time, they managed to do the job. The reason behind West Indies poor form has been the dispute between the Board and the players, followed by few of the surprising decisions from the management. They probably handed Jason Holder the captaincy quite early and the youngster failed to perform under pressure.
Not just Champions Trophy, there might be a case when West Indies will also fail to claim a direct qualification for 2019 World Cup, as there is just one spot left for the direct qualification and there is another team Pakistan which has their eye on that one.
If West Indies fail to mark direct qualification, it might be the darkest period in their cricketing history.