The just ended all-format Bangladesh men’s cricket tour of the Caribbean was fascinating to put it mildly.

Hosts West Indies were confident of sweeping the two-Test series and lifting themselves firmly off the bottom of the International Cricket Council (ICC) table after comprehensively defeating the visitors in the first match in Antigua.

But as indicated here recently, this Bangladesh team proved a very different proposition from those of times past. For though we are often reminded that Bangladesh swept West Indies in the Caribbean in 2009, the regional side then was way below strength — without all its elite players who had withdrawn their services following a remuneration dispute.

In the recent tour, Bangladesh boasted highly talented spin bowlers — an aspect to which we are accustomed — as well as an unaccustomed, potent pace attack. Their fast bowlers operated with telling effect in partnership with their spinners and resolute batsmen to defeat their hosts in the second Test at Sabina Park, squaring the series.

That drawn series effectively spelt the end for head coach of the West Indies Test team, Mr Andre Coley, who Cricket West Indies (CWI) announced is to be replaced by white-ball head coach and twice Twenty20 World Cup winning captain Mr Daren Sammy. The changeover will take effect after the regional team’s Test-match trip to Pakistan in the New Year.

The feel-good effect was back for Caribbean fans not long after the Sabina defeat, as Mr Sammy’s West Indies swept higher-ranked Bangladesh 3-0 in a One-Day International (ODI) series in St Kitts.

However, young, talented Bangladesh are also highly motivated fighters. They bounced back immediately by sweeping out-of-sorts West Indies 3-0 in a T20 series at Arnos Vale in St Vincent.

The T20 results were all the more extraordinary since Bangladesh entered the series ranked ninth by the ICC, with the West Indies fourth.

Such is the topsy-turvy nature of life that from a high after guiding the West Indies to their triumph in the ODI series, Mr Sammy suddenly found himself in the depths just a week later.

Potentially, the appointment that could have the greatest long-term impact on regional cricket is that of highly successful and innovative Jamaican businessman and marketer Mr Chris Dehring, as chief executive officer of CWI, starting February 1.

Mr Dehring is firmly grounded in cricket dating back to the late 1970s when as a student at Campion College he represented the Jamaica Under-19 team in the annual regional tournament.

He best served the sport as a marketing executive for what was then the West Indies Cricket Board — starting in the late 1990s — and subsequently as managing director and CEO of ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

He has written and spoken in some detail about the challenges facing West Indies cricket, not least in terms of woefully inadequate funding. And, he has not shied away from stating the obvious, that barring strong corrective action, the near 100-year-old project will die.

The recent failure of a crucial decision-making board meeting in Antigua after disgruntled representatives from Barbados and Guyana stayed away merely underlined the challenge ahead.

We wish Mr Dehring well as he sets out to do his part in saving what he has described as “this beautiful thing called West Indies cricket”.