Why Barbados, and not West Indies, participated in CWG 2022?

Some fans were left confused to see Barbados and not West Indies competing in the Commonwealth Games women's cricket competition.

 It's complicated

For the uninitiated, West Indies is not a nation per se but a collection of islands that come together to play under the West Indian flag. This is why in the Olympics and in the Commonwealth Games, particular island nations like Grenada, Barbados, Jamaica, St Kitts etc. take part.

Like the Olympics, the Commonwealth games also have athletes representing their countries.

Hence, it was mutually decided among Cricket West Indies, the ICC, and the management of the Commonwealth games that there would be a qualifying event among the island nations in the West Indies and whoever wins would qualify.

 Spanner in the works

However, due to the pandemic, that event had to be cancelled and the winner of the last domestic T20 competition of the West Indies was selected as the qualifiers.

Courtesy of winning the last Women's Blaze competition, Barbados qualified for the event and, in a way, represented the West Indies in the Commonwealth games.

First taste of success

They had a great start to their campaign by beating Pakistan by 15 runs.

"It was electric, man," Barbados captain Hayley Matthews said after defeating Pakistan, "I'm always really well supported by the Barbados team. We have a special bond within the group, but I really can't say much more; it was special, that's for sure. I think when we were out playing our domestic season, what we tried to focus on really hard as the top four core batting group was batting really deep in the innings and that showed today," Matthews said.

"Obviously, we wouldn't necessarily have as much depth as we usually would and experience as we usually would within a West Indies team. So backing all the other players 100%, we know that our top four or five batters are our main ones that are looking to score most of the runs, and it was really good that we were able to spend some time at the crease and bat really deep today."

Unfortunately for Barbados, their campaign was derailed after their 15-run victory over Pakistan. They went on to lose their remaining two group matches against Australia and India by 9 wickets in 100 runs, respectively and were knocked out of the competition.