Cricket World Cup 2011 Preview: West Indies

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In news that will shock nobody, the West Indies have announced an particularly talented side to head to the Cricket Globe Cup 2011 in the subcontinent. Like so a large number of Windies teams in the past fifteen years, this squad holds an extraordinary quantity of promise, but it is fully unsure no matter whether they will even make it into the second phase of the tournament.

Joining captain Darren Sammy in the squad are names such as Chris Gayle, Dwayne and Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Shiv Chanderpaul, Kemar Roach and the returning Ramnaresh Sarwan. Still, whilst this list represents a potentially outstanding core, the West Indies are likely to be as brittle as ever. Much of the problem stems from the challenges surrounding central West Indian contracts, which appear to be much less than assured, and have noticed important players represent T20 franchises before the national team. Moreover, a lack of comptetitive cricket in current times, partly due to a washed out series in Sri Lanka, indicates that the Windies have had hardly any time to 'gel' as a unit.

An additional prospective predicament, as noted by cricinfo, is the current form of key player Ronny Sarwan. As soon as a mainstay in the team, Sarwan has been out for a time with injuries and poor form. Although he is now over 30, Sarwan is still 1 of the key players, averaging over 43 in ODI's. The plight of the team is further hindered by the bowling stocks, which do feature Roach, but also contain the likes of Ravi Rampaul and un-tried Andre Russell (hardly names most likely to make leading batsman shake in their collective boots). It remains a mystery to me why Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor remain out of the side, but if you paired them with Roach and the fine spinner Sulieman Benn, you would have a incredibly respectable bowling line-up.

These challenges aside, the Windies could nonetheless prove to be competitive. It's a tired cliché, but on their day they can beat everyone. It is a lengthy time given that Ian Bradshaw and Courtney Browne hit the winning runs to give the Windies the 2004 Champions Trophy, but with the right amount of luck, and astute preparing and selections, there is consistently an outside opportunity that they could find themselves holding aloft a major trophy once more.

West Indies Squad: Darren Sammy (cpt), Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Devon Smith, Sulieman Benn, Nikita Miller, Carlton Baugh (wk), Andre Russell, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach, Shiv Chanderpaul, Adrian Barath