Even during the glory days of global domination in the latter 1970s, 80s, early 90s, and for a period in the 1960s, West Indies cricket captains found the going rough.

Insular nationalism — which drove public perception of bias in team selection — often made life difficult for regional cricket leadership on and off the field. That challenge remains to this day.

Before the enlightened, post-colonial period of the 1960s, an insistence by cricket’s elite that West Indies captains were better off being white or “high brown” complicated matters even more.

Today, and for the past three decades, the heaviest weight wearing down West Indies captains has been the absence of consistent success on the field of play — failure often the norm rather than the exception.

We suspect that last fact partially explains extraordinary news that outgoing West Indies Test match captain, Mr Kraigg Brathwaite, wanted to step away midway the two-Test tour of Pakistan in January. That’s before the 32-year-old opening batsman from Barbados was encouraged by Cricket West Indies President Dr Kishore Shallow to complete the tour as captain.

Mr Brathwaite’s resolute batting in extremely difficult, spin-friendly conditions proved pivotal as, against all odds, the Caribbean side recovered from an opening Test defeat to win the second match and tie the series.

Mr Brathwaite’s team had achieved even more spectacular success in January 2024, stunning the cricket world by beating Australia in Brisbane to draw that two-Test series as well.

That was the first Test match victory by West Indies over Australia in 21 years, and the first on Australian soil in 27 years.

Yet, Mr Brathwaite, a mild-mannered but strong-minded man, would have been deflated by other results in 2024, including a 0-3 loss to England in that country and a 1-1 draw with fast-improving Bangladesh on Caribbean soil.

A compelling disappointment for Mr Brathwaite was surely an alarming decline in his batting with his average plummeting over the last two years.

According to Cricket West Indies, walking away from captaincy will allow Mr Brathwaite “who is two matches shy of 100 Test matches, to double down on his batting without added responsibility” in a three-Test series against Australia in the Caribbean this June and July.

Surprising as was Mr Brathwaite’s departure as Test captain, even more so for this newspaper was the decision to replace Jamaican Mr Rovman Powell as Twenty20 (T20) captain. Mr Shai Hope, a Barbadian, will now be the captain in both T20 and One-Day International (ODI) formats.

Cricket watchers will recall that Mr Powell was in charge as the West Indies surged from ninth in the International Cricket Council (ICC) T20 rankings to third in the lead-up to last year’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and United States. Immediately after the World Cup, a string of defeats led to the West Indies falling back to fifth in the T20 rankings.

All-format coach, Mr Daren Sammy has stoutly defended the decision to replace Mr Powell, arguing that Mr Hope’s leadership in T20s will give the West Indies a greater chance of sustained success.

Immediate, strong criticism of Mr Powell’s sacking was inevitable. In a no-holds-barred social media post, former white-ball West Indies Captain Mr Dwayne Bravo, a Trinidadian, described the move as “easily one of the worst decisions ever”.

For the good of West Indies cricket we can only hope Mr Bravo is proved wrong.