It seems like just yesterday that 300 was a big, challenging score in One Day International (ODI) cricket, no matter the nature of the pitch.

Nowadays, on a fair pitch for batsmen, such a score is no longer even mildly intimidating.

Fielding restrictions, shorter boundaries and increasingly fearless, innovative stroke play by physically fit, confident athletes swinging heavy bats are among the contributing factors to the drastic change.

So that even when West Indies made 421 in their warm-up game against New Zealand on Tuesday, the chase was by no means impossible. In fact, if Kane Williamson hadn’t been run out, having got on top of the West Indies bowling, that game would have been very close, in my view.

As the New Zealander Trent Boult has said, ODI cricket is now an extended Twenty20 game. We are left little choice but to believe that 500 in 50 overs is now just around the corner.

More than ever, as we enter today’s start of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup with hosts England facing South Africa, teams need so-called ‘x-factor’ bowlers. The task for those bowlers — be they express pace, swing exponents or ‘mystery spinners’ — will be to get wickets regularly in order to hamstrung the batting side or better yet bowl them out long before the allotted 50 overs are complete. Simply relying on containment of runs per over doesn’t seem an adequate strategy.

That’s the reason England, desperate to win their first 50-over World Cup title, put aside principle and changed their own eligibility rules in order to select the talented Barbadian fast bowler Jofra Archer.

And that’s also the reason some of us in the Caribbean held our heads in dismay when Shannon Gabriel left the field after bowling just two balls in the rain-ruined warm-up against South Africa last weekend. Hopefully, he will be fit for tomorrow’s outing against Pakistan.

With all due respect to the classy Kemar Roach and the new ball swing of Sheldon Cottrell, Gabriel’s controlled pace and hostility will be crucial to West Indies success at this World Cup.

I still marvel at how the selectors at the time could have felt it appropriate to leave Gabriel out of the West Indies squad for the qualifiers in Zimbabwe last year.

West Indies dodged that qualifying bullet — only just.

The batsmen Shai Hope, Andre Russell, Chris Gayle, Evin Lewis, et al, showed a glimpse of what’s possible in that warm-up against New Zealand. They will have to repeat that sort of performance time and time again, if the West Indies are to reach the knockout stage.

It will be a tough, arduous tournament with each of ten teams playing each other once in the first round. Inevitably, fitness will be brought into question and management will have to be very careful in handling players such as the ageing Gayle, and Russell with his dodgy knees.

Obviously, fielding is a major concern for the West Indies entering the tournament. Those problems have been exemplified by off-spinner Ashley Nurse who bowled really well against New Zealand but was poor in the field. Long considered a good fielder, Nurse in recent months has given the impression he has forgotten how to catch.

Another concern is the batting form of Darren Bravo. Unfortunately, he was cut short by a run out against New Zealand. But such is Bravo’s quality, I expect him to come good.

Jason Holder and his West Indies team are in a position where there are more ‘doubting Thomases’ than believers. They should use that to their advantage.

They should do as skipper Holder has said he wants his team to do: play fearless cricket and not worry about expectations.

If they can consistently play fearlessly, without self-doubt, who knows? They may well leave the rest of us absolutely stunned.