When­ev­er a moth­er dies, the world be­comes a poor­er place. The hand that rocks the cra­dle rules the world. The Windies team was thrown in­to mourn­ing yes­ter­day as news came to hand that young pac­er Alzarri Joseph had lost his mom, af­ter a pro­longed bat­tle with ill­ness.

The young man who hails from Cen­tral vil­lage of All Saints in An­tigua still took the field and per­formed well for his team against Eng­land on the third day of the sec­ond Wis­den Test at the Sir Vi­vian Richards ground.

Joseph's moth­er Sharon has been bat­tling with a brain tu­mor for since 2015 and she fi­nal­ly gave up on Sat­ur­day. Her moth­er and Alzarri's grand­moth­er Aileen Joseph was how­ev­er ab­sent from the ground on the day.

She nor­mal­ly op­er­ates the man­u­al score­board on the West­ern side of the ground.

Sharon was an avid sportsper­son back in the day and tried her hands at foot­ball, net­ball, and crick­et. She was par­tic­u­lar­ly good at soft­ball crick­et and was al­ways ath­let­ic say those close to her.

Af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed in 2015 things went down­hill for her and al­though she vis­it­ed the Unit­ed States to re­ceive treat­ment it was al­ways go­ing to be dif­fi­cult for her to re­cov­er. Last year Joseph had to leave a Windies tour and fly back home to be with her when things got re­al­ly bad.

Alzarri was her on­ly child and she was very proud of his achieve­ments on the field of play and when he made the leap to the Windies se­nior team.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day, as he walked out to bat, he re­ceived a stand­ing ova­tion from the fans here and Eng­land's Barmy Army played the trum­pet. Both teams al­so paid re­spects to him and his fam­i­ly by wear­ing black arm­bands.

Trib­utes al­so poured in from leg­ends Sir Vi­vian Richards and Sir Curt­ly Am­brose. Richards said: "At this point in time we must give him all the sup­port we can. I am sure he will get that but to go out there and to play for the West In­dies un­der that pres­sure, shows you the met­tle of the young man. I am proud of him and wish him all the best in cop­ing with this loss."

Am­brose who is in Aus­tralia tak­ing part in the 'Danc­ing with the Stars' show said: "I would like to send con­do­lences to the young man, all his fam­i­ly, and even his close friends. I will al­so like to let him know that we are think­ing of him at this mo­ment and our prayers are with him as well."