Unsurprisingly, following recent disastrous on-field results, the Caricom Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee (PMSC) on Cricket has called for urgent, sweeping reforms in the management of West Indies cricket.

In a formal sense, the West Indies cricket team, combining players from a number of Caribbean islands and Guyana, dates back close to 100 years. At an informal level, the regional team goes back long before that.

Over time, West Indies cricket became deeply ingrained in regional culture and lifestyle. For a long time it was the only element that held the English-speaking Caribbean and Guyana together.

Crucially, the performance of our cricketers on the world stage was at times the only source of pride for generations of Caribbean people — mostly descendants of slaves kidnapped and brought here in chains from Africa; as well as impoverished indentured Asian labourers.

For Caribbean people struggling to survive in Britain during the post-World War Two period, the triumphs of their black and brown brothers on the cricket fields of that country served as unmatched beacons of hope.

The reverse of that pride has been near-unspeakable pain felt by Caribbean people after far too many on-field disappointments over the last 30 years, especially.

None worse than the West Indies second-innings total of 27 all out at Sabina Park in Kingston just under two weeks ago as the regional team fell to a 0-3 Test series loss to Australia. Cricket’s record keepers say 27 all out was the second-lowest score in the near 150-year history of Test cricket.

It hasn’t helped that up to last evening, the West Indies were trailing Australia 0-2 in their five-match Twenty20 series.

Hence the cry of Caribbean prime ministers echoing the pain and emotion of ordinary people that the West Indies team’s “recent performance is a moment of reckoning…” and that “…Every cricket match in which our West Indies team competes resonates far beyond the boundary…”

Describing West Indies cricket as a “public good”, the prime ministers have called for Cricket West Indies (CWI) “to undertake a thorough and transparent review of its governance, leadership, management, economic models and development frameworks, underpinning the sport”.

Crucially, they say, they are “troubled” by the “lack of real progress” in implementing recommendations following reports on the governance of West Indies cricket by several highly respected Caribbean personalities down the years. The prime ministers say they want “concrete action” from CWI.

They say they will also be setting up their own committee, including “cricket legends”, representatives of private sector and academia to review the various reports, “synthesise” recommendations and propose an “action plan”.

It all sounds good. But it seems to us that crucially, even as cricket governance becomes more efficient, transparent and accountable, governments must also look to proactively build partnerships with the business community and national associations in developing cricket at the base, the grass roots.

That’s in terms of locating the resources for modern training facilities in schools and clubs, development of coaches, build-out of national academies, and so forth.

For sure, in Jamaica’s cricket, developmental weaknesses constitute a monumental challenge.

We suspect that at the global level, those inadequacies make up the essential difference between top cricket-playing countries and the West Indies.