Ricky Ponting, the former captain of Australia, has called West Indies’ early elimination from the ongoing T20 World Cup 2022 a ‘disgrace’.
West Indies, who have been perhaps the most dominant team in the shortest format, were eliminated from the competition in the qualifying rounds after losing to Scotland and Ireland.
The two-time T20 World Cup champions lost to Scotland in their opening match of the preliminary round but defeated Zimbabwe to maintain their Super 12 qualification chances. However, they were eliminated from the ongoing ICC event as a result of Ireland's resounding victory over them.
“It’s a disgrace," Ponting said at the SCG ahead of the opening Super 12s match between Australia and New Zealand here on Saturday (October 22).
Ponting raised questions about the players' commitment to ICC tournaments.
“It’s so bad for their cricket. They’ve got too much talent in that team and in West Indies cricket not to be able to make it through to the next stage of a World Cup.
“And even one of their main players not making it to the flight to get over here for a World Cup… To me this sort of sums up probably how little these events mean to the West Indies players and if you look at the way that they played you’d say the same thing,” he remarked.
The former cricketer continued by saying that the Nicholas Pooran-led side will have some thinking to do.
“(Nicholas) Pooran and these guys, they’re much better players than what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks so no doubt there’ll be some soul-searching done when they get back.
“They’ll be as disappointed as anyone, it’s easy for me to stand here and say that it’s a disgrace that they haven’t made it, but they’ll be hurting as much as anybody.
“They would have had big thoughts and dreams coming here and they haven’t played anywhere near well enough to even progress. So they have got some work to do."
Next month, West Indies and Australia will play a two-match Test series, and Ponting believes that in order for the series to be exciting, the tourists will have to play out of their skins.
“But what’s interesting with that, they’ve actually found a way, mainly at home I guess, in the last few years to be reasonably competitive on the Test front with Brathwaite and Holder, he’s done a really good job in Test cricket for them.
“But they’re going to have to find a few lengths if they’re going to compete against the Aussies with the current group that the Australians have got. If you just line them up on paper, there’s no way you think that they could compete.
“Cricket’s a funny game, but they’re going to have to play out of their skins I think to make the first two Tests entertaining."
The first and second Tests will be played in Perth and Adelaide from November 30 and December 8, respectively.
(PTI INPUTS)
