Vin­ode Mam­chan

Miss­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 2017 In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy has come as a ma­jor em­bar­rass­ment for West In­dies crick­et and now the next two years will prove to be very cru­cial if they are to make the World Cup.

The re­gion­al team is cur­rent­ly ninth on the ICC's of­fi­cial ODI rank­ings and will miss the Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy in 2017 in Eng­land, as it is re­served for the top eight sides.

The next im­por­tant qual­i­fi­ca­tion date in the di­aries of the 12 teams on the ICC ODI Team Rank­ings will be Sep­tem­ber, 30, 2017.

That is the date when the top eight ranked sides on the ICC ODI Team Rank­ings will earn di­rect qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the ICC Crick­et World Cup 2019 to be host­ed by the ECB. The bot­tom four sides will get a sec­ond chance to com­plete the 10-team line-up in the ICC Crick­et World Cup when they will be joined by teams from the ICC World Crick­et League Cham­pi­onship and the ICC World Crick­et League Di­vi­sion Two in the ICC Crick­et World Cup Qual­i­fi­er 2018.

As such, all bi­lat­er­al ODI crick­et in the lead up to Sep­tem­ber, 30, 2017, in­clud­ing the ICC Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy 2017, will now have greater im­por­tance.

The West In­dies team has been in­flict­ed with all kinds of prob­lems which has af­fect­ed their on field per­for­mance. They be­gin their bid back in­to the Top Eight against Sri Lan­ka from No­vem­ber 4 in Sri Lan­ka. They are card­ed to play three ODIs which if they win will give them valu­able points be­cause the Sri Lankans are rat­ed high­er than the West In­dies.

If they win the se­ries against Sri Lan­ka by a 3-0 mar­gin, they will go to 92 points and climb ahead of Pak­istan and in­to eight spot. It they win the se­ries 2-1, they gain two points to move to 90 which will equal Pak­istan's tal­ly and put them in eight spot as well. If they lose the se­ries 1-2, they will still gain a point and move to 89 from their cur­rent 88. If how­ev­er they are 'white­washed' they then lose a point and go to 87.

Af­ter the Sri Lankan se­ries the West In­dies tour Aus­tralia but there are no lim­it­ed overs match­es on the itin­er­ary. Next year how­ev­er is a big year for the West In­dies in terms of ODI crick­et, as they will host the mighty South Africans and Aus­tralians in a tri-se­ries. If they can pull wins against these top ranked sides, they can im­pact their rank­ings in a pos­i­tive man­ner and look to put them­selves in a healthy po­si­tion with­in the top eight.