After Shamar Joseph’s heroics inspired West Indies to a 1-1 Test series result against Australia, Caribbean cricket fans were brought back to Earth by the 0-3 thrashing in the follow-up One Day International (ODI).

The latter result came as no surprise, since the ODI squad — without top players who were honouring cash-rich commitments in various Twenty20 (T20) leagues — was even less regarded than the under-strength Test match squad which shocked the cricketing world.

Now at full strength following the return of the previously missing players, the West Indies still lost to Australia in their opening T20 game of a three-match series on Thursday.

To be fair, the Caribbean side, led by Mr Rovman Powell, competed all the way to lose the high-scoring affair by 11 runs. The remaining games of the series are scheduled for Sunday and Tuesday.

After successes against South Africa away, as well as India and England in the Caribbean over the last 11 months, the expectation is that the current Australian tour will fine-tune two-time ICC T20 World Cup winners, West Indies, ahead of the upcoming T20 global showpiece in mid-year.

As cricket-watchers are aware, West Indies and the United States will be joint hosts.

Given the rapid growth of white-ball cricket in the USA and other non-traditional cricket-playing countries — driven largely by migration from the cricket-loving Indian subcontinent — the upcoming tournament will be breaking new ground.

Some may see the growth of the sport in the USA and Canada as posing some sort of threat, somehow, to Caribbean cricket interests. In our view, the opposite may well turn out to be true.

We suspect that just as is now the case for football, strong professional T20 leagues in economically powerful North America will open doors for young cricketers from Jamaica and the wider Caribbean hoping to earn from the sport.

Indeed, that is already happening.

What the burgeoning, lucrative T20 leagues around the world will mean for traditional Test and longer-format cricket is left to be seen. But that’s an entirely different story.

Meanwhile, despite the well-established resource constraints, those in charge of the sport in Jamaica and the wider region must continue the drive to recover lost ground, and to encourage and nurture young talent.

Without doubt, the Under-19 Cricket World Cup — which comes to an end on Sunday with India and Australia in the final — was pleasantly eye-opening for regional fans.

Even in their one and only loss to South Africa in their opening game, West Indies Under-19s dazzled with their talent on occasions. The quality that seemed most lacking was game awareness — an aspect we expect will be addressed in the Cricket West Indies (CWI) academy programme.

At the higher level, we are extremely pleased that CWI found it possible to include an academy squad as well as one comprising students from regional universities and colleges in the four-day tournament which began this week in Jamaica and elsewhere.

There is much to be done, and a far way to go, but we believe every step forward can make a positive difference.