From giants to minnows.That, in a nutshell, is the story of West Indies cricket, especially in One-Day Internationals. The Caribbeans are two-time world champions in the longer white-ball format, but not many eyebrows were raised when they again failed to secure a place among the teams guaranteed automatic entry to the 2027 ODI World Cup to be hosted jointly by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England and Bangladesh are all going to be there, alongside hosts South Africa and Zimbabwe. Afghanistan earned their spot in that group following their exciting win against Ireland in Belfast.The West Indies, who are currently 10th in the ICC ODI rankings, will not be able to secure one of the automatic qualification spots by the September 30 deadline even if they win both their remaining ODIs versus India and will have go through the gruelling Qualifiers in February next year if they don’t want to miss out for the second consecutive time.For the 2023 edition too, they were unable to qualify directly, and had to take part in the Qualifier, ultimately ending up in fifth position in the Super Six phase and missing the tournament completely.Prior to that mishap, the once-powerhouses had never failed to qualify for the men’s ODI World Cup, and since their omission from the 2023 tournament, they also missed the 2025 Champions Trophy.The new qualifying system provides quite a complicated route to the tournament.The team that wins the Qualifier will be given direct entry into the second round of the 2027 World Cup, while those who finish in second, third, and fourth places will have to take part in the first round, which is called the Super Series.The winner of that tri-series will progress to the second round of the World Cup. This change has not been received well by associate members, particularly Scotland and the Netherlands, who issued a joint statement on Monday to call it out as a “setback to associate member cricket”.The Qualifier will include Ireland and West Indies, who are the two lowest-ranked non-host Full Members in the ODI rankings as of September 30, 2026, together with the top four teams from the Cricket World Cup League 2.The other four places will be taken by teams that advance from the World Cup Qualifier Playoff; this eight-team playoff will include the four lowest-placed sides from the CWC League 2 and four teams from the Challenge League, which is essentially cricket’s third division.The four teams that finish at the top in the playoff will be promoted to the World Cup Qualifier.The Challenge League includes 12 teams, who are divided into two pools containing six teams each. During the cycle, each pool will hold three round-robin tournaments, and the two teams at the top of each pool will progress to the World Cup Qualifier Playoff.For all the talk of their players focusing more on franchise cricket, it remains to be seen whether this current crop of West Indies players can qualify and prove that 2023 was just a blip and not the start of a downward spiral even in the shorter formats of the game.Jaydip is a Pages Editor at Gulf News and has sports running in his veins. While specializing in Tennis and Formula 1, he also makes sure to stay on top of cricket, football, golf, athletics and anything related to sports in general.