OUR beloved West Indies cricket team once again fell to greater opponents last weekend. This time it was to perennial rivals Australia, who in doing so, rubbed salt into the wound after earlier in the series securing the Frank Worrell trophy.

The loss came as no surprise to anyone as the Caribbean team continue to be mere shadows of their former selves. Ever since the freefall down the rankings of Test-playing nations that the West Indies has experienced, people have been trying to figure out what is the root cause.

Allegations that it was because the players were young, that they did not care about the sport or that they were only in it for the money quickly surfaced.

Others have lamented that the current players lack of a sense of history and a lack of desire to actually realise what the beautiful game meant to the people from this region. Other still have chalked it up to the rest of the world catching up with the marauding maroon clad men of the seventies and eighties.

Several former players even lashed out at the administrators of the sport, who they said, failed to put in place proper succession planning. This meant that the youth were not being successfully engaged in the sport and the freefall was the result.

Perhaps the loudest and most damning complaint has been that the players themselves lack serious talent. Indeed, there was a time when the names of top West Indies cricketers would strike fear into the hearts and minds of their opponents. When a batsman heard Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding or Courntey Walsh and Courtley Ambrose they thought twice about taking any chances with the bowlers. The class and experience of players such as Jimmy Adams, Carl Hooper and even Brian Lara commanded respect from any bowling attack.

While it is certainly true that our current crop of players do not possess the skill of these former stars, we at TEENage believe that that is not the most pressing issue.

Time and time again, we have seen the West Indies lose the series from early and with nothing to fight for but sheer pride, put in brilliant performances that show that there is something about this team.

A case in point is the recent series between them and Australia.

After capitulating in the first match, they returned with a valiant effort (led by some brilliant batting) to draw the second match. After losing the series, the men returned and came within 35 runs of defeating a powerful Australian contingent.

Centuries from Chris Gayle and half-centuries from Brendan Nash and Adrian Barath highlighted the batting, while Sulimann Benn, Dwayne Bravo and Kemar Roach made waves with the ball. In previous series, the likes of Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan have put our team on the map.

As a result, it is clear to us that talent is not the major problem. For us, the real issue is the team’s mental ability to wrap themselves around the task at hand and perform at the same level all the time. This mental problem could be one similar to that which Asafa Powell faced in the past.

In essence, we feel that if there could be some way to deal with the team’s mental state before these important series that we could begin to take our rightful place in the cricket world.

— Dhane Brown and Michael Thompson