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” opportunites 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-if 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 half-century. 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 successes 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?
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” opportunites that might have produced a somewhat different outcome had they been grasped.