Tony Becca

The Under-19 World Cup cricket tournament ended in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Sunday and after dropping out at the end of the first round, after the disappointment of ending up among the also rans and in the company of teams like Papua New Guinea and Namibia, Bermuda and Malaysia, the West Indies won the Plate Trophy with the top prize going to India for the second time.

In normal circumstances and in spite of the West Indies far from impressive record at the tournament, the Plate Trophy would hardly be considered a consolation for the West Indies and especially so after considering themselves good enough to win the tournament going into it and that they were the only team from the Test-playing countries to end up in the company of the bottom eight of the 16 contenders.

For the West Indies, however, things were not so normal this time around.

The West Indies were ranked number seven going into the tournament. Because of the seeding based on the rankings, they fell into the group which included India who were ranked at number two; because of the draw, South Africa, who were ranked outside the top eight, landed in the group with India and the West Indies and that was tough, not for one, not for two, but for all three teams.

According to the rules of the tournament, the top two from each group moved on, the bottom two dropped out and into the competition for the Plate. Regardless of their ranking that meant it was two from India, the West Indies and South Africa. Although India were so far ahead in the ranking, even though the West Indies were ranked higher than South Africa, who were ranked at number 10, it was always going to be tough for any one of the three to come out of the 'Group of Death'.

Little comfort

As it turned out, the West Indies lost to both South Africa and India. They lost to South Africa by three wickets and to India by 50 runs and although neither one of the two results is close in a 50-over contest, the West Indies can take comfort from the fact that after defeating them, both teams, India and South Africa, defeated the likes of Australia, England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand before contesting the final as the two best teams in the contest.

In other words, based on the results, the teams that defeated the West Indies were the best teams around and by defeating Sri Lanka, number six and Australia, number three, before the start of the tournament, by going on to win the Plate, the West Indies probably are saying to themselves, and with good reason, "with a little luck at the draw, we may well have gone to at least the semi-finals".

Looking at the results involving India and South Africa, after they had dismissed the West Indies, the Windies may well have made it to the last four.

With New Zealand defeating Sri Lanka by 79 runs in one quarter-final and Pakistan defeating Australia by six wickets in another, South Africa thrashed Bangladesh by 201 runs in another and India destroyed England by seven wickets in the fourth quarter-final. Then in the semi-finals, South Africa caned Pakistan by 98 runs and India knocked out New Zealand by three wickets to set up what turned out to be a close and exciting clash for the title between the two teams from Group B - from the same group as the West Indies.

The West Indies did not win and based on the individual performances they probably did not deserve to win. It was, however, not as bad as it looked. With a little luck, instead of winning the Plate Trophy and finishing in ninth position - two below their ranking going in - they could have finished higher and deserving of some handclaps.