Tym Glaser, Associate Editor- Sports

OKAY, KIDDIES, get out your pens and paper now because we are gonna have a little math lesson to see if we can somehow get the West Indies into the World Cup semis.

They sure as heck don't seem to be able to do it on the field, so let's see if we can at least help them out a little by juggling the numbers and seeing if any of them can come up trumps for our regional representatives.

Now, I've done most of the leg work here and, to be brutally frank, things don't look too rosy.

Second worstWhile Australia's batsmen are devouring Super Eight sides at about seven runs per over or a ridiculous 350 per innings, the Windies bats are strolling along at just over four an over or 200 a game.

Four an over is not bad in Tests but just a little on the slow side in the Wham-Bam-Thankya-Ma'am Cup.

To be sure, even those rank amateurs from Ireland, our fun buddies in green from Group D, are going along at a slightly faster clip while the primary opposition for the top four berths - New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa and England are averaging 50-over totals of between about 236 (England) and 269 (Sri Lanka).

So that's about a cool 40-odd runs better than the Windies. Ummm, no real hope there.

Let's take a gander at the bowling.

Now, those miserable men in black from the Shaky Isles lead the way in the economy stakes with a meagre 3.73 runs conceded per over - or about 186 runs a match. Not bad at all from the Kiwis on these small grounds and reasonably placid pitches.

The Sri Lankans are also being frugal at 3.85 per over (192 runs per 50 overs) but the rest of the teams are getting pretty beat up including guess who?

Good news

The good news is that there are two teams worse than the Windies in bowling economy, South Africa (5.52 due primarily to a 377-run walloping from Australia) and Bangladesh who are giving up a projected 333 runs per match. Thankfully, they bat first a lot.

Our glorious men in maroon have kept opponents to a mere 5.3 an over or about 265 a knock. Not dreadful, but about 60 more than they are making with the bat.

Hmmm, this isn't working so well, students.

Okay, let's see now, the Windies have played the same number of games as second-place Sri Lanka and have four points less. Every other team has played a game less and four of those sides have more points than our heroes.

Group stage points aside, even Ireland are performing better with bat and ball.

Shucks.

Well, the good news is that Brian's Brigade has played the three best teams statistically (and Ireland), but all that probably shows is we don't really know how bad the Windies are yet.

Right, guys, that math business just didn't work out. Let's go to Bible study.

BATTING

(Runs made per over)

Australia