Earlier defeats to England and India in the ICC Women’s Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa, which extended their losing streak to 15 games, meant West Indies Women entered Friday’s clash with Ireland under a dark cloud.

Yet hope springs eternal and there has been a resurgence of optimism following their tension-packed six-wicket win over the Irish, with just a ball to spare.

West Indies Captain Miss Hayley Matthews — who led the way with a classy, unbeaten 66 — and her team must now focus on overcoming Pakistan as they eye the possibility of advancing to the next round.

Miss Matthews described victory over Ireland as being the result of a “complete team effort” and it surely will take no less if they are to get past Pakistan.

From this distance it seems unrealistic to expect this youthful squad at this stage of their development to emulate the extraordinary achievement of 2016 when West Indies Women shocked the world by winning the global T20 title.

However, if the current tournament can be used as a launching pad for glory up ahead, Caribbean fans will be well satisfied.

Back in 2016 this newspaper marvelled at the achievement of the West Indies Women — then led by Miss Stafanie Taylor — given the paucity of development programmes for women’s cricket region-wide.

We dare say not a lot has changed in that regard in the seven years since. In Jamaica, for example, there is still no properly structured league for adult women or schoolgirls.

We are aware that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic would have stalled development plans, but it’s full time for those in charge of cricket to stir wind behind the sails of the women’s project.

On the men’s side, there is obviously much more attention to nurturing and development. Yet, Cricket West Indies — severely hampered by resource constraints — trails the world’s leading cricket-playing jurisdictions by a long way in that regard as well.

It showed in last year’s disastrous showing in the Men’s T20 World Cup with the West Indies embarrassingly eliminated in the preliminary round — beaten by Scotland and Ireland.

So it was with extreme relief for Caribbean fans that Mr Kraigg Brathwaite’s Test match team survived unscathed the proverbial banana peel on tour of Zimbabwe earlier this week. They beat their lowly-rated hosts by an innings and four runs in their second and final Test to complete a 1-0 series win in the rain-affected, two-match series.

So now the West Indies turn their attention to a tour of South Africa, which includes two Test matches, as well as white-ball cricket involving One Day International (ODI) and T20 series.

This trip to South Africa will mark the first time that separate captains, recently appointed Mr Shai Hope for ODIs and Mr Rovman Powell (T20s), will be in charge of the West Indies in white-ball formats.

We expect hosts South Africa to be big favourites in the Tests, ODIs, and T20s. But, again, for West Indies fans, hope springs eternal.