Cricket Canada’s plan was simple: invest in a crop of players just before the 2011 World Cup, and develop them through to the 2015 World Cup. Under that strategy, the players would be exposed to a high quality brand of cricket, leading up to the World Cup qualifiers which concluded this past month.
After four years of high-performance preparation, Cricket Canada felt they were in a strong position to qualify for the 2015 World Cup, where they’d once again take on the big wigs of cricket for their fourth appearance in a row. But somewhere in their blueprint, the plan didn’t hatch out as they fancied. Call it an off campaign or a flat showing, but Canada finished eighth overall at January’s World Cup Qualifiers in Christchurch, New Zealand and no one at Cricket Canada saw it coming.
The winners in qualifying, Scotland and United Arab Emirates, clutched the final two spots at cricket’s biggest bout next year in Australia. It’s a chance to cause some upsets and grow as cricketing nations. For Canada: it’s time to rebuild.
For the guys who pick the team — a five-man national selection panel made up of past Canadian cricketers and former international first-class players — they didn’t see this coming. Former West Indian cricketer Gus Logie, who was Canada’s coach at the time the team was picked, didn’t see this coming. Even former chairman, Christopher James, didn’t expect a performance like the one in Christchurch. These distinguished men were in charge of picking the team that would catapult Canada into the Super Sixes and then into the draw of next year’s World Cup. No one could predict Canada’s lowly 1-3 record at the qualifiers.
So what went wrong?
For one, Canada lacked fight and flare when faced with adversity at the qualifiers. The 10-team tournament identified glaring gaps in their game: the inability to build batting partnerships, a failure to apply pressure on opposing teams (such as holding catches and claiming early wickets) and an absence of team confidence. These were the sentiments from a circumspect Cricket Canada president, Ravin Moorthy, after the nation’s best blundered an opportunity to take part in cricket’s mantle piece next year: the World Cup.
“The strategy to go with the players we’ve invested in, rather than look for new players, didn’t work.” he said, conceding that the team has struggled since 2009 to put wins together consistently. “Everything is easy in hindsight. Unfortunately no other players put their hands up to try and push the incumbents out of their spots. I don’t think there is a simple answer other than we just didn’t play well enough consistently to win.”
Moorthy said the past few years, the goal has been to play as many high-quality games as possible, including two vigorous domestic tournaments that were meant to showcase other talent capable of performing at the international level. They achieved that. But the results at the 2014 qualifiers didn’t reflect the hard-fought preparation Canada accomplished. And because of the woeful scores and losses that transpired, all parts of the program are under review and the board will be looking at how best to go forward as soon as possible.
LOOKING AHEAD
Yes, it was a disappointing outing at the World Cup Qualifiers. And yes, the Canadian team lacked fire and aggression. They also lost some confidence. It was during the Hong Kong innings, Moorthy recalls, when Irfhan Ahmed was dropped at slip off the first ball. Ahmed went on to record an unbeaten 100* from 85 balls and Hong Kong won that match by nine wickets. Moorthy believes all is not lost.
“That hurts,” he said. “We just weren’t able to put teams under enough pressure. But now, we’ll use this as building blocks. ”
In February, Moorthy will be placing a microscope on the U-19 World Cup and watch (he hopes) the emergence of future Canadian cricketers. Long term, the Canadians will be preparing for the T20 World Cup Qualifiers in 2016. They will also leverage their relationship with the West Indian Cricket Board, looking to send players overseas to gain experience with international teams such as India.
“We want to make a statement. That will be the focus of the next 18 months. To find out who is committed? Who will drive the team forward?” Moorthy said. “Now the slate is clean. It’s time to reboot the program, the same program we’ve had since 2001, and time to start fresh.”