THE West Indies face a different kind of pressure in their remaining World Cup group matches.
South Africa’s woes have all but guaranteed Carl Hooper’s team one of the three places from group B in the Super Six round. But it is conditional on them not slipping up against any of the three lesser teams - Bangladesh, Canada and Kenya - which follow in that order.
They will also be anxiously consulting the weather forecasts since they will have to share the points, two each, if any match is abandoned before each innings has a minimum of 25 overs.
Two tough, earlier encounters against South Africa and New Zealand are followed by a more straightfoeward one today in the nearby town of Benoni against Bangladesh, opponents they comfortably defeated in Bangladesh late last year and are expected to beat again with similar ease. The Bangladeshis have been shattered by two disastrous losses so far, by 60 runs to bottom-seeded Canada and 10 wickets and 28.4 overs by Sri Lanka that have further exposed theiir credentials as the International Cricket Council’s latest full playing member as dubious at best. To use that apt Trinidadian _expression, they carry as much confidence into today’s match as a cockroach in a fowl coop. But the West Indies know from bitter experience that cockroaches can sometimes stick in the craw of the proudest rooster. Their loss to Kenya in the 1996 World Cup in the Indian town of Pune was the most infamous instance of the role reversal but that to India in the 1983 final at Lord’s and even Thursday’s to New Zealand in Port Elizabeth are other examples of the danger of taking things for granted. Captain Carl Hooper dismissed complacency as a reason for the New Zealand defeat, even though the evidence was strong. Now he has called on his players to complete a “big, big win” over Bangladesh. A measure of the West Indies attitude was the decision to make only one change to the eleven beaten by New Zealand. Corey Collymore replaced Nixon McLean, who bowled poorly on Thursday, so that Marlon Samuels and Jermaine Lawson, the two talented young Jamaicans, still await their chance. It must come against Canada in Centurion on Sunday for they both need match practice. Hooper emphasised his aim.
“We’ve got to take a leaf out of Sri Lanka’s book and get the game over and done with efficiently,” he said. “People have done the maths already but what if one of the smaller sides throws a spanner in the works? We’ve got to play the game properly and win convincingly.” The West Indies would already be through to the Super Sixes had they beaten New Zealand, a defeat brought about by a closing, unbeaten partnership of 53 off 43 balls between Brendon McCallum and Andre Adams for New Zealand, Samuels’ dropped catch off Adams that cost 21 and the loss of five wickets for 12 runs off 30 balls at the top of the West Indies innings. “We batted poorly but, if you are going to have a bad game, better to have it in the preliminary round than the Super Six,” Hooper said. Hooper acknowledged that it suits the West Indies for South Africa to go through to the Super Six stage as a group win against any other qualifier gains the four points for the next round. “It would be nice to have their support but we’ve got to take points into the Super Six,” he explained. “It would be good for us if we had the points against South Africa.” The calculations for determining the three qualifiers from the group for the Super Six are complex.
Always presuming there are no other setbacks, a West Indies defeat against Sri Lanka February 28 would put Sri Lanka top of the group. Even a subsequent South African victory over Sri Lanka would then leave them tied with New Zealand and the West Indies, eliminating them from the Super Sixes on the basis of their group losses and plunging millions of South African fans into mourning. Victories by the West Indies and South Africa over Sri Lanka would put the West Indies top and South Africa, New Zealand and Sri Lanka tied with 16 points each, assuming South Africa beat Sri Lanka. Since they would the same win-loss records against the other two, the other two to advance would be determined on net run rate. For the moment, such statistics do not concern Hooper. His priority is to win and win well today.
Teams:
West Indies: Carl Hooper (captain), Chris Gayle, Wavell Hinds, Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Ricardo Powell, Ridley Jacobs, Vasbert Drakes, Merv Dillon and Corey Collymore.
Bangladesh: Khaled Mashud (captain), Al Sahariar, Alok Kapali, Eshsanul Haque, Habibul Basher, Hannan Sarkar, Khaled Mahmud, Manjural Islam, Mushrafe Mortaza, Mohammed Ashraful, Mohammed Rafique, Sanwar Hossain, Talha Jubair, Tapash Baiysa and Tushar Imran.