LONDON — The declining fortunes of West Indies cricket hit a new low Wednesday when the Caribbean team failed to qualify for the 2017 Champions Trophy in England. Restricted to the world's top eight-ranked sides, the West Indies missed out on the lucrative event after slumping to ninth place on Wednesday's cut-off date. Its failure to qualify marks the first time the West Indies will be missing from any of cricket's three big limited-over events — the 50-over World Cup, the Champions Trophy and the Twenty20 World Cup. West Indies is one of just three teams to have captured all three titles, winning the 50-over World Cup in 1975 and 1979, the Champions Trophy in 2004 and the Twenty20 World Cup in 2012, but has fallen on hard times. Once the most dominant force in world cricket, West Indies has struggled in recent years, plagued by chaotic mismanagement and rows over player contracts. Last year, West Indies abandoned its planned tour of India and just two days ago, it suspended coach Phil Simmons after he criticized the selection policy for next month's tour to Sri Lanka. Its spot in the 2017 Champions Trophy was effectively taken by Bangladesh, whose last appearance at the tournament was in 2006, although it finished seventh in the rankings, just ahead of Pakistan. Australia, India, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan also qualified, along with the host-nation England, which was automatically granted a place. The 2017 Champions Trophy will take place from June 1-18, with the eight qualified teams separated into two pools of four, and the top two from each group advancing to the knock-out phase. Pakistan adds spinner Asifto one-day squad Pakistan Wednesday announced it would retain off-spinning allrounder Bilal Asif for the one-day series against Zimbabwe to assess his potential ahead of next month's series against England. The 30-year-old was not played in the two Twenty20 match series which Pakistan won 2-0 in Harare Tuesday. The three One-Day Internationals start from Thursday. Chief selector Haroon Rasheed said Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq wanted to see Asif in action ahead of the three-Test series against England in United Arab Emirates (UAE). “The request to retain Asif had been made by the team management and in a separate discussion with Misbah, we decided to assess Asif as another spinning option against England,” Rasheed was quoted as saying in a Pakistan Cricket Board release. “Misbah believes that since the England team contains five left-handed batsmen and because of (Mohammad) Hafeez's inability to bowl at international level, we were left with no off-spin bowling options in the Test squad,” he added. Pakistan already has leg-spinner Yasir Shah and left-armer Zulfiqar Babar in their 15-man squad for England Tests which begin in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 13. “Misbah suggested that since Asif is presently the standout available option in the domestic circuit and should be assessed in case we intend to add him as the 16th member in the Test squad against England.” The other two Tests will be played in Dubai (Oct. 22-26) and Sharjah (Nov. 1-5), followed by four One-Day and three Twenty20 Internationals. — Agencies
