Reuters
LEFT: West Indies' Chris Gayle plays a shot during their third one-day international cricket match against Pakistan at Gaddafi Cricket Stadium in Lahore recently. RIGHT: West Indies' captain Brian Lara.

Tony Becca, Contributing Editor

The World Cup of cricket is now under three months away. It will be hosted by the West Indies, and according to ICC CWC West Indies 2007 Managing Director Chris Dehring and almost all his colleagues working with him, when it is all over, it will be remembered as the best World Cup of all time.

Dehring and his crew may well be right.

With so many new ones built or renovated, as far as the stadia, the facilities for cricket, are concerned, there is no question about it - the stadia, including the two in Jamaica, one for the tournament and one for practice, will be world class, and with the sunset legislation to make life easier at the airports for travellers, with new roads for comfortable travel to and from the matches, with private roads open to them, with towns and cities looking clean and beautiful after a facelift, with security updated and hospitals brought up to date to look after our guests should in case any thing happens to them, with all the entertainment being planned and the souvenirs that will be available to them, the fans, and especially so the visiting fans, will be treated royally.

In other words, as far as the off-the-field preparation for the World Cup is concerned, everything, and more, it appears, is on target for making the World Cup the best ever.

And when it is over, West Indians in general and Jamaicans in particular, will be happy, or should be happy, it was here.

The hospitals, for example, will be better equipped, and the West Indies, and certainly Jamaica, will be a better place in which to live.

The World Cup, however, is a cricket tournament, and as happy as they will be if their guests are comfortable and happy, and so much so that they will come back again, West Indians will be disappointed if their team, the West Indies, do not do well in it. In fact, not only do they want to do well, they also want to win the Cup and become the first home team to do so.

That is what, to them, would make the World Cup the best ever.

The question, however, is this: Can the West Indies, now ranked number seven in the world, rise to the occasion, match skills with the likes of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and even India and England, and win the Cup?

One-day cricket nature

Such is the nature of one-day cricket, that they can, and on top of that, with batsmen like Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Brian Lara and Ramnaresh Sarwan, plus Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Bravo in their line-up, with bowlers like Jerome Taylor, Corey Collymore, Ian Bradshaw, Fidel Edwards and Dave Mohammed, plus Bravo, Gayle, Samuels and Dwayne Smith to call on, they have the batting and the bowling which, if they click, if they also field well, they can perform well and win the Cup.

Australia must be clear favourites, and they will be difficult to beat. In spite of the ranking, however, there is not much difference between the West Indies and the other teams - not in one-day cricket.

As Gayle said a few days ago after the series between the West Indies and Pakistan, however, if the West Indies continue to play the sort of cricket they have been playing recently, they will find themselves struggling going into the World Cup, and there is no question about it, the powerful left-handed batsman is right.

According to captain Lara and coach Bennett King, the West Indies did not do so badly during their three-month tour of Asia, and they are looking forward to a good performance in the World Cup, and again, they may be right.

The West Indies performance during the tour of Asia, however, was disappointing, and it was disappointing not only because of the result, but also because their performance with the bat, with the ball, and in the field was so inconsistent, it was almost embarrassing.

As usual, there were some brilliant performances with the bat, with the ball and in the field, but most times, it was like taking one step forward and two steps backwards.

WI moods

One day, they were good, sometimes brilliant, and for the next four, five or six days, they were disappointing.

Excluding their qualifying matches against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh for the ICC Champions Trophy, the West Indies played 15 matches in Asia - five in the DLF Cup between the West Indies, Australia and India, six, including Sri Lanka, in the ICC Champions Trophy, and four in Pakistan, and they won two in the DFL, three in the ICC Champions Trophy and one in Pakistan for a total of six victories and nine losses.

According to Lara and King, it was good that the team got to the final of the DFL Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy, but as good as those performances were, or may have been, it should be remembered that they lost both finals to Australia easily - one by 127 runs after they were routed for 113, and one by eight wickets after they were dismissed for 138.

It should also be remembered that but for their six-wicket victory over South Africa in the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy, and their victory against Pakistan when the home team were without their three top batsmen and four of their best bowlers, all their victories were close affairs while their losses one-sided.

Apart from the two finals, the West Indies were dismissed for 80 by Sri Lanka and lost with Sri Lanka having nine wickets in hand and 36.4 overs to spare, against Pakistan, the West Indies lost the third match with Pakistan having seven wickets in hand, and against Pakistan in the fifth and final match, after the West Indies had won the fourth against a weak team, talked about character and that they were gunning to win the match to share the series, they were defeated with Pakistan having seven wickets in hand and with their two top batsmen, Mohammad Yousuf and captain Inzamam ul-Haq, sitting in the pavilion.

The West Indies can win the World Cup, but as Gayle has said, they will have to come good. In spite of some good and some brilliant performances, they will have to do better than they have been doing recently.

Gayle also said that by now the West Indies should have settled on the squad for the World Cup, once again I agree with him, and the squad travelling to India in January should be the squad for the World Cup.

BECCA'S 14

My squad of 14 players: Brian Lara - captain, Carlton Baugh, Ian Bradshaw, Dwayne Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Corey Collymore, Fidel Edwards, Chris Gayle, Dave Mohammed, Runako Morton, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Smith, and Jerome Taylor.