MELBOURNE: Cricket World Cup chief executive John Harnden said on Tuesday he was confident the West Indies would play in next year’s tournament, despite their shock withdrawal from a tour of India.

The West Indies cut short their India tour this month over an internal pay dispute, despite the fifth ODI, a T20 and three Tests still to be played.

The situation has raised doubts as to whether the Caribbean side will be able to fulfil their upcoming international engagements, including a tour of South Africa followed by the World Cup.

West Indies, who won the first two World Cup tournaments in 1975 and 1979 and reached the quarter-finals in 2011, are always among the most popular teams at the showpiece.

India’s powerful cricket board responded by suspending all future tours involving West Indies as well as taking legal action against the WICB, which could have a devastating financial impact on cricket in the region.

But Harnden said he was confident the issues would be resolved and the West Indies would play in the World Cup being jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand from mid-February.

“We see that everyone’s very focused on resolving the situation as quickly as possible,” Harnden said. “We’ve got 108 days until the World Cup and from our point of view I’ve no doubt the West Indies will be here and entertaining the crowd as only they know how.”

The World Cup 2015 will begin on Feb 14. West Indies are scheduled to open their campaign against Ireland in Nelson, New Zealand on Feb 16 and also play defending champions India, South Africa, Pakistan and Zimbabwe and the UAE in Pool ‘B’.

Meanwhile, former Australian paceman Glenn McGrath said the home side could win their fifth one-day World Cup trophy given the current form of ace fast bowler Mitchell Johnson, despite this week’s loss to Pakistan in the first Test in Dubai.

“We’ve been playing some pretty good cricket of late and we’re a tough team to beat at home in our home conditions,” McGrath said.

“If you look at the T20s and three ODIs we won them so it has only been that last Test. To me the true indicator of where the Australian team is in this next Test, whether they learnt a lot from that first game.”

Published in Dawn, October 29th , 2014