T20 World Cup: Ricky Ponting labels West Indies 'a disgrace' for missing Super 12 stage

Sydney: Ricky Ponting has minced no words in labelling West Indies a ‘disgrace’ for missing the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup being played in Australia. West Indies lost two of their three matches in the qualifiers to exit in the first round for the first time .

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“It’s a disgrace,” Ponting said at the SCG on Saturday ahead of Australia vs New Zealand. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s really so bad for their cricket.”

Two-time T20 World Cup winners West Indies beat only Zimbabwe in the qualifiers, losing to Scotland and Ireland, and missed out on the Super 12s .

Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Zimbabwe and Ireland earned a place in the Super 12 from the qualifiers.

“They’ve got too much talent in that team and in the West Indies cricket not to be able to make it through to the next stage of a World Cup,” said Ponting.

“Even one of their main players (Shimron Hetmyer) not making it to the flight to get over here for a World Cup to me sums up probably how little these events mean to the West Indies players.

“If you look at the way that they played you’d say the same thing … they’re much better players than what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks.

“No doubt there’ll be some soul-searching done when they get back (home) and I reckon the next series they play there’ll be a lot of different faces in the side because the guys they’re going with now are certainly not getting the job done.”

West Indies are slated to face Australia in the summer with Test matches in Perth and Adelaide, beginning in little more than a month, and return again next season for more Tests.

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