PAKISTAN'S ELIMINATION from the World Cup is not likely to generate any form of assistance to the West Indies team's chances of making the semi-finals. That is unless the least-fancied England are going to play out of their skin and shock the goose bumps out of one or two top-notch sides in this Super Eight and turn the tournament on its head again.
Mighty hopeful, or too far-fetched, don't it!
Ireland are the only team the West Indies will not play in the Super Eights so, straight off the bat, it seems fairly easy pickings and two points to the opposition for their meetings against Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, England and maybe even Bangladesh.
Tremendous Irish spirit
Unless, of course, either of those teams shows up on the wrong side of a Pakistan mood running full steam into that tremendous Irish spirit.
Added to that, as the late Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer summed up after their surprise loss, those other Super Eight squaddies would also have to "... get straight balls, hit them straight into the hands of the fielders, and that's it!"
It was actually more than that though, and if any of these contenders in this, the real competition, believes so, then watch out. Trent Johnston and his bunch of part timers, who are growing in self-belief with every passing moment, may just be a good bet to inject more shock therapy.
However hopeful, the West Indies though would love to be stepping in any of those teams' shoes, but that not being the case, they themselves will have to play out of their skin to grab a top-four spot.
Headstart
By virtue of beating every team in their first-round group, the West Indies have given themselves a headstart and number among four teams which start the Super Eight with two points - a bonus for beating the team which qualified from their group.
Somewhere down the line, those two points are going to be pretty handy with each team set to play against every team but the one that advanced from their group.
With unfancied Bangladesh also advancing from their group ahead of India, it means that along with the two points, two of the other three win-perfect teams besides the West Indies, Oceania duo Australia and New Zealand, can basically count off four more easy points and a six-point tally, which is really a big jump.
The other team that won all their first-round matches, Sri Lanka, of course, will not play Bangladesh again as they were in the same group.
Despite all this though, the West Indies do have the quality to make their place in the semi-finals, moreso on the strength of their deadly contrasting batting than their steady and deceptively decent bowling attack.
They have developed nicely as a good chasing team and much of their success will rest on the consistency of the top five of Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sar-wan, Marlon Samuels and Brian Lara.
Chasing targets
Especially when chasing targets exceeding 300 runs, which are quite likely given the size of the fields and batting strength of the other main contenders, that group needs to bat a huge chunk off the runs and scoring rate in a chase situation - like the one presented in yesterday's rain-affected contest against Australia who had totalled 322 runs.
Given his play in the past two years, Samuels, with both bat and ball, looks the team's real trump card and its chances of winning may well be through this talented batter now producing according to promise.
Overa longer period, the team has also grown in stature to make a habit of qualifying for finals in whatever tournament it plays.
It has been gearing steadily towards this one and now that it has moved into the real competition smoothly, the West Indies, despite Pakistan's elimination, should be able to generate their own advantages in the immediate quest of advancing to the semi-finals.
