Qatar certainly had an impressive margin of victory in their first game, despitetwo separate players being run out in the 90s. They also used 8 (eight) bowlers.

Bermuda is not in the Caribbean, so is obviously quite distinct. (It’s a couple of thousand miles away, in the North Atlantic.)

There are a couple of other nearby countries with their own national teams outside the Windies: Turks and Caicos, and the Bahamas. They are much closer, but they are the wrong (northern) side of Cuba and again lie in the North Atlantic rather than the Caribbean. Historically Turks and Caicos was part of the West Indies Federation/British West Indies, like the Caymans – in fact both were politically attached to Jamaica. The Bahamas was not, though it later joined CARICOM.

The Caymans are right next to Jamaica (closer to Jamaica than the other Windies nations), are formerly politically part of the British West Indies / West Indies Federation (as part of Jamaica – it only became a separate colony as part of Jamaican independence) and are now an associate member of CARICOM. So all things considered they seem to “belong” as part of the West Indies much more than Bermuda, the Bahamas or Turks & Caicos. Perhaps they are just so small they figure they’d just be subsumed into Jamaica for the purposes of first-class cricket (as the Channel Islands would be if they were to form part of the England set-up) and would be unlikely to ever contribute any players to the Windies team … though even tiny St Lucia eventually produced a Windies player – Darren Sammy!

I had always assumed it was analogous to the Bermuda situation (or Jersey/Guernsey/Isle of Man), but let’s say it’s for tax reasons, everything that happens in the Caymans is for tax reasons.

Incidentally, does anybody know why the Caymans play as a separate team not as part of the Windies? Politically they were part of both the British West Indies and the short-lived West Indies Federation.

Tricky to predict things at this division level. Sometimes all it takes is a country with a substantial sub-continental expat community (often one you might not have expected to be there) that have gone and got their cricketings organised and they can storm up the rankings. So I wouldn’t want to rule Qatar out just yet. Wonder if it has all come a bit early for Germany – their cricket scene has just had an almighty expansion from the very large number of Afghan refugees who settled there in the last couple of years, but it’ll take some time for it all to get reorganised and for newcomers to meet residency qualification conditions.

Jersey and Italy look the most likely to progress (having both been relegated from Division Four last year), but Guernsey (who finished third last time around at this level) could spring an upset.

The other teams involved are Ghana (who I shouldn’t have listed first in this bit, as I don’t know anything about their team), Vanuatu (who Pointless fans will no doubt be rooting for), the Cayman Islands (whose Wicketkeeper Ramon Sealy is also an international footballer), Qatar (who seem less interested in piling money into cricket than buying French football teams) and Germany (who probably aren’t as good as they were in the 1930s).

Better than Leverock? An amazing display.

Just have to say how atrocious the commentary and the graphics were, though. No wonder WI cricket is in decline – almost unwatchable (and unlistenable).

Also whoever was pirating their TV feed to serve up these youtube highlights (and despite his name I’m sure “MSD official” isn’t MSD’s official youtube channel… do kids these days even understand what “official” means?) rather spoiled things by showing Cornwall retiring hurt, but Pollard’s ball that led him to retire hurt. And despite the title, he scored 78, not 80. Bah.

Ended up retiring hurt after getting hit by a ball to the stomach. You’d think the extra padding would have prevented that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06RA4NSTuW8

YES.

Well targeted barb, Mike…

…which is more than can be said for the Oval arra.