Delhi: The biggest news these days regarding direct qualifying for the 2027 Cricket World Cup is that Afghanistan's success in qualifying directly proved to be a curse for the West Indies team and all avenues of direct entry to play in the World Cup were closed for them. They can still play in the World Cup but now West Indies will get this opportunity only because of a qualifying campaign. The most surprising thing about this fact is that the way they played at the beginning of the World Cup, no one had even thought that this team, which played the first three World Cup finals and won the first two World Cups (without losing a single match), would one day aspire to directly qualify for the World Cup.

For most of the 1970s and 1980s, the Caribbean team was not only one of the best teams in the world, it was the standard by which other teams were judged. If their fast bowlers were afraid of other batsmen, then their own batsmen played without any fear and gave the team the title of 'almost undefeated'.

Today, the same team is in the news for not making it to the World Cup. This opportunity was lost due to them not being in the top 8 teams in the ODI rankings for direct qualification for the 2027 World Cup. The most important thing is that this is the third consecutive World Cup in which they have reached the position of playing only through qualification.

Clive Lloyd was the captain in the first three World Cups and his team defeated Australia in the final at Lord's in 1975 and four years later, defeated England to retain the title. Then came 1983 and Kapil Dev's India pulled off one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history, preventing the defending champions from winning the title.

The second story started from here.

The end did not happen at all. The West Indies team remained a strong team in Test and ODI cricket throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. However, while on one hand the level of his game gradually declined (there are many reasons responsible for this), on the other hand the rest of the teams kept on catching up with him. The West Indies team did not get the players who replaced the great generation like Lloyd, Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner and later Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose.

Not only did they start losing, overall it also had such an impact on West Indies cricket that their graph kept falling down on every parameter of cricket. The youth who carried forward the tradition of cricket started moving away from cricket. West Indies continued to compete in the World Cup, but its old dominance was over.

Played semi-finals in 1996 but has not been able to play even once in the World Cup semi-finals after that. At times, the old spark was also seen, thanks to Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Dwayne Bravo and some other players, but they could not become a part of such a cricket machine which no one could stop, and were seen playing more as individual stars.

At the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, they were the hosts but the team could not even play the semi-finals and were ranked No. 6 in the Super-8 stage.

This decline was not just a story of ups and downs in the team's performance, it had become a problem for West Indies cricket, which no effort to solve has been successful till now. T20 showed another scene. The strange thing is that the West Indies players, due to their natural attacking play, tremendous athleticism and many power-hitters, are in demand in franchise leagues around the world, became global T20 superstars, but together they never made the West Indies team the 'power' that would have reminded them of their previous better days.

Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, Sunil Narine, Nicholas Pooran, Shimron Hetmyer and others became valuable players for the franchise. West Indies also won the T20 World Cup in 2012 and 2016, but for these players, the goal was not the glory of West Indies cricket, but earning more money as professionals. Therefore, the graph of West Indies cricket also fell down in T20. Now it is clear that for these players there is no such thing as 'loyalty' with West Indies cricket.

The internal diversity of the West Indies team (in which players from Caribbean countries and regions spread many miles apart play together), which was once its strength, is today the biggest reason for its disintegration. When no one watches international matches there, then who will watch domestic cricket? If there is no money then the players are running out.

Got a warning in the 2019 World Cup, did not qualify directly but played. Couldn't even play in the 2023 World Cup. The situation is the same now and there is no guarantee that this time we will play in the World Cup through the qualifying tournament.