There were sighs of relief for West Indies cricket fans everywhere as their team eventually eased past Papua New Guinea by five wickets with six balls to spare in their opening game of the ICC Twenty20 (T20) World Cup in Guyana on Sunday.

Widely expected to be an easy breeze for the Caribbean side, given the lowly status of their opponents from the South Pacific, the match proved tricky, to put it very mildly.

Seeming to lack focus against spirited opponents, Mr Rovman Powell’s West Indies lost wickets regularly in chase of a relatively modest 137. That was before a composed Man-of-the-Match Mr Roston Chase and Mr Andre Russell carried them over the line.

Indeed, an umpiring error which spared top West Indies batsman Mr Nicholas Pooran from being out LBW before he had scored; and failure by Papua New Guinea to challenge the umpire’s decision, may well have saved their hosts — two-time T20 World Cup champions — from extreme embarrassment.

Inevitably, as West Indian batsmen struggled, fans had flashbacks of their team falling by the wayside in white-ball World Cup tournaments in 2022 and 2023.

For those with memories going back nearly three decades, there were nightmarish thoughts of a star-studded West Indies beaten by unheard-of Kenya at the 1996 50-over World Cup in India.

Without doubt, Papua New Guinea’s Head Coach Mr Phil Simmons, who previously guided the West Indies, his staff, and players, deserve high praise for their preparation, planning, and execution.

Also, we expect that were there any complacency in the West Indies camp following impressive performances in the build-up phase, that has now completely evaporated.

That apart, we believe Papua New Guinea’s combative show underlines the rapidly evolving face of global cricket, especially in T20s.

We saw plentiful indication of that Saturday night in the high-octane World Cup opener between triumphant United States and Canada in Texas.

Impressive growth of the sport globally — more especially in wealthy North America and Europe — is being largely fuelled by huge migrations from cricket-mad Indian sub-continental nations, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

Not to be missed on Saturday night was the preponderance of players with Asian heritage on both sides. And, similarly, the strong Asian spectator support.

That Asian factor explains what’s being described as last year’s successful début season — in terms of earnings — for franchise-based US Major League Cricket.

Some suggest that not too far from now, the rapid-fire T20 version of the game will be a huge pull factor beyond traditional Asian and Caribbean people in North America.

Also, not to be missed on Saturday night was that several players of Caribbean heritage, including Jamaicans, represented the USA and Canada. Indeed, two Barbadians, Man-of-the-Match Mr Aaron Jones of the USA, and Mr Nicholas Kirton of Canada, were lead performers.

We expect that as cricket gains popularity in North America, so too will high-earning opportunities rapidly expand there for cricket-playing youngsters in the Caribbean.

What will all that mean for West Indies cricket as we have known it for close to a century?

For good or ill, depending on the reader’s perspective, what’s for certain is that there are very interesting times ahead for cricket in our hemisphere.