?The much revered glo­ry days of West In­dies crick­et are mem­o­ries of a dis­tant past. A dis­tance that grows ever longer with each ac­cu­mu­lat­ed de­feat.

We have en­tered an era where the re­silience spir­it of West In­di­an fans is di­min­ish­ing as the taste of dis­ap­point­ment and heart­break has be­come com­mon ground, and for many the pas­sion does not rise above the anger. There are many, how­ev­er, who still dare to hope, but that hope does not ex­ist with­out the shad­ow of pend­ing fail­ure and neg­a­tive com­men­tary that seems to have af­fixed it­self to our West In­di­an crick­et. So the dilem­ma that faces our West In­di­an na­tion is how we fix the is­sues that plague our team. Al­so, whether we can rise above our dif­fer­ences that af­fect our crick­et ad­verse­ly in or­der to re­store pride and com­mon pur­pose, or do we go our sep­a­rate ways and face the world of crick­et as sep­a­rate na­tion states?

Our cap­tain Chris Gayle has clear­ly stat­ed that there is no rift among our play­ers and we com­mon folk who may nev­er have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of close in­ter­ac­tion with the team would nev­er be able to prove the con­trary. How­ev­er, maybe there is in fact a silent rift among our play­ers that ac­counts for con­tin­u­ing fail­ure. On analysing our team, one would re­alise that it is made up of play­ers from dif­fer­ent na­tions in con­trast to all the oth­er ICC recog­nised teams. Many would like to use the phrase "West In­di­an cul­ture." How­ev­er, oth­er than cli­mate, many of our Caribbean na­tions have very lit­tle in com­mon, mak­ing the in­gre­di­ent for jelling very dif­fi­cult.

Un­like the glo­ry days of the 70s and 80s when we viewed our­selves as Caribbean na­tions with sim­i­lar strug­gles, much de­vel­op­ment has since oc­curred and we are now na­tions dis­play­ing dis­par­i­ty in wealth, among oth­er fac­tors. This dis­par­i­ty may have served to high­light our dif­fer­ences in re­cent years and may ac­count for un­con­scious jeal­ousy and un­healthy com­pet­i­tive­ness among our play­ers, re­sult­ing in a seg­re­gat­ed team. Ul­ti­mate­ly, a team that is un­able to unite may have giv­en rise to our beloved crick­eters see­ing the game as just a job, where­by the sport is void of love, re­spect, and pride.

While this is but my hum­ble opin­ion, it may be food for thought. Giv­en our dif­fer­ences, the age of West In­di­an crick­et may be com­ing to an end and al­though it would be tough fi­nan­cial­ly for each na­tion to sur­vive on its own, it may mean the dif­fer­ence be­tween our play­ers go­ing through the mo­tions or play­ing the game with some­thing to be­lieve in.

Melis­sa Lutch­me­di­al

Bal­main, Cou­va