With the West Indies having failed to progress beyond the Super8 stage of the recently concluded 2024 ICC T20 World Cup, social media’s countless self-proclaimed Caribbean cricket experts have been busily posting their opinions on the causes of the co-hosts’ disappointing failure. Not wishing to now be a part of any such postmortems, I will adopt the somewhat facetious approach of contemplating some missed “what-if” opportunities that might have produced a somewhat different outcome had they been grasped.
Topping my list of such missed opportunities was West Indies Head Coach Daren Sammy’s decision not to engage the services of either Dwayne Bravo and/or Kieron Pollard as part of his World Cup coaching cadre. As two of the most outstanding, globally recognized, achievers in T20 cricket history both Bravo and Pollard would have undoubtedly provided immense expertise and experience to the West Indies campaign. While Sammy deliberately chose to ignore their potential value by not including them among his chosen coaches, his counterparts for Afghanistan and England certainly didn’t.
Afghanistan’s inclusion of Dwayne Bravo as its Bowling Consultant and England’s similar acquisition of Kieron Pollard’s services as its Batting Coach resulted in each of those two countries progressing to the World Cup semifinals. Leaving all of us who were so hopeful for similar West Indies success to ponder what Sammy had done the right thing by making both Bravo and Pollard a part of his coaching cadre!
Sammy’s apparent determination to do things his way was also at the core of the second
big what-if. His continued insistence on choosing the out-of-his-league Johnson Charles
as Brandon King’s partner to open the West Indies batting. Instead of Shai Hope as many,
including myself, had long since suggested would have been the much wiser choice.
It wasn’t until injury had ruled King out of any further participation in the tournament that
Sammy was finally forced to give Hope the opening batting opportunity he should rightfully
have assumed from the very beginning. Hope seized his chance with an outstanding halfcentury.
Charles meanwhile continued to underperform until he was finally dropped for the
West Indies’ decisive Super8 match against South Africa.
Who knows, had King and Hope been the chosen opening batting pair from the very first
match, they might have gotten West Indies off to much better initial power play scores than
were posted. Maybe, just maybe. the pressure placed on King to advance the scoring by
Charles’ ineptitude at the other end might also not have necessitated him having to go into
such weird shot-making contortions as he was when he suffered his tournament-ending side
strain injury!
Again what-if Hope had opened the West Indies batting with King instead of the hopeless
Charles?
Hope by the way ended the tournament with a strike rate of 187.71. By far the highest among
all batters from every participating country!
A fit King with Hope as his partner would certainly have been a much better option for the
West Indies opening pair in their decisive Super8 match against South Africa to determine
which of those two teams would progress to the semi-finals. With King ruled out through injury
and Charles having finally, deservedly, been relegated to the bench, the West Indies made
yet another glaring strategic error. That of choosing Kyle Mayers, who was not even among
the initially chosen squad of 15 but was drafted in as King’s replacement, to open the batting
alongside Hope.
Instead of choosing the tried, tested and T20 22 runs-per-innings averaging repeatedly proven
failure Mayers, Sammy should have made the much bolder choice of allowing Shimron
Hetmeyer to fill the role. As it was Mayers made a painstaking less-than-a-run-a-ball 35 and
was a major contributor to the West Indies abysmal recording of no fewer than 57 dot balls
in its first strike twenty-over innings. Almost half the available overs were not scored from in an
eventual wholly inadequate total of 135/8. A paltry total that was never, ever, going to be
enough for the West Indies bowlers to defend in an attempt to secure the required victory.
What-if Hope and Hetmeyer had been the opening batting pair against South Africa? I
daresay that there would have been a lot fewer than 57 dot balls recorded and eventually a
much higher, far more challenging, West Indies’ first strike total.
The West Indies bowlers were simply magnificent in their attempt to defend the
inadequate total their faltering batters had set the South Africans for victory.
So much so that the match’s outcome was decided until the first ball of the
twentieth over, bowled by Obed McCoy whose previous six deliveries had
conceded nine runs.
The biggest anomaly of the West Indies bowling effort, however, was, that none of
their three spinners Akeal Hosein, Gudakesh Motie, and Roston Chase completed
their four allocated overs. Chase the most successful of the lot ended with figures
of 3/12-3.
The final question that must, therefore be asked, is as to why Chase was not
allowed to complete his full four overs. What-if he had done so? Might he have
added to his tally of three wickets or perhaps even more likely would he have
contributed positively to increasing the amount of runs the South Africans required
in their final overs? Thereby affecting the eventual match outcome in favor of
the West Indies?
Those then are my top five what-if’s which had the correct choices been made
could arguably have positively impacted the West Indies 2024 T20 World Cup
campaign. The reality is, however, that the next T20 World Cup will only be in the
short period of another two years. Which now presents a wonderful opportunity for
at least two even more impactful what-ifs!
The first of these would be what-if Cricket West Indies (CWI) were to do away
with its arguably failed separate coaches experiment by giving total Head Coach
responsibilities across all formats to Andre Cooley. His achieved success with the
West Indies Test team have, arguably, been more impressive than Daren Sammy’s
comparative white-ball achievements.
Secondly, what-if CWI were to also recognize that in Brandon King. Shai Hope,
Nicholas Pooran, Roston Chase, Sherfayne Rutherford, Shimron Hetmyer, Romario
Shepherd, a recalled Kemo Paul, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Gudakesh Motie
and Shamar Joseph, the West Indies now already possess the core of a squad that
under the right leadership, suggestively King’s, and with the guidance of suitably
qualified coaches can indeed be molded into a T20 World Cup Championship
title-winning squad.
Add Jayden Seales, another batter possibly Alick Athanze, and an unearthed
right-arm leg spinner to that mix, and who knows they may also even be quite
capable of challenging for the 2027 ODI World Cup as well.
Now wouldn’t those be what-ifs most worthy of consideration and implementation?
