T20 World Cup: What does West Indies’ ouster in the first round mean for world cricket?

It’s a partly cloudy/ partly sunny evening in Australia. But people in Ireland have just started a bright and sunny day whereas the Caribbean had dark skies over them, late past midnight.

The atmosphere in the respective camps at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart was quite similar to the daytime back at their homes. The Irishmen ensured bright sunshine on their cricket, while darkness loomed over the West Indies cricket.

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Ireland had never made it to the second round of a World Cup after 2009, but they did. West Indies had never been eliminated in the first round of the World Cup, but they did. Ireland changed the power dynamics of T20I cricket, probably forever.

West Indies: Fall from grace as two-time T20 World Cup champions fail to make main round

Ireland defeated West Indies in their final Group A contest of the 2022 T20 World Cup. It wasn’t the first time that the Irishmen had gotten the better of a more celebrated team, but this was different. This time, they had, by defeating a more pronounced team, eliminated, the only team to have won the T20 World Cup twice, out of the tournament.

Ireland, albeit, had vanilla ending to their victory. They needed eight runs of 28 balls to seal the victory. But Paul Stirling and Lorcan Tucker collected just two more runs in the four remaining balls of the 16^th over and inched four runs closer in the 17^th over. Stirling continued his slower version and took one run from the first two balls of the 18^th. Tucker was tired by then and decided to end it with a lofted slice over the cover-point region for a boundary on the offside.

The batters in the middle hugged each other. There were some fist bumps and hugs in the dugout. The players also waved at their fans in the stadium and let Paul Stirling lead the team out of the field, but there were no wild celebrations. No fancy dances, no wild running, and no over-aggressive display of emotions. Probably, they expected it to turn out the way it did. Probably, they did not consider it to be an upset.

Absolutely gutted..