At the risk of seeming overly repetitive, the extraordinary spectacle that is the FIFA World Cup means much else is being lost in the shadows.

So that while many among us who closely follow sport are no doubt aware of other important happenings, those easily end up being mentioned only in passing.

Such as that West Indies Women defied odds to reach the semi-finals of the Twenty20 (T20) Cricket World Cup in England before falling to Australia.

And that the partnership of West Indies all-format coach, Mr Daren Sammy, and red-ball captain, Mr Roston Chase, achieved its first Test match victory on Sunday after more than a year of trying.

In the case of our women, it’s easy to dismiss the eight-wicket defeat by Australia in the recent semi-final as “embarrassing” — as was done by at least one media outlet.

But, like president of Cricket West Indies (CWI) Dr Kishore Shallow, we believe the Hayley Matthews-led West Indies Women and their support staff deserve rich applause for getting to the semi-finals.

Dr Shallow declared that CWI remained “fully committed to investing in the continued development of our women’s programme, ensuring our players have every opportunity to compete consistently for global honours”.

Yet, we know that cash-strapped CWI is in no position to invest in development programmes as comprehensively as it should.

That was evident only recently when the annual men’s four-day regional tournament was chopped and altered because of money woes.

Sadly, material support from regional governments and business sector is lukewarm at best.

No surprise then, that in Jamaica, for instance, there is no cricket league for schoolgirls.

Against such a backdrop, we will forever marvel that West Indies Women won the 2016 ICC T20 World Cup, and continue to compete well against top international teams.

Resource constraints are also extreme for West Indies men’s cricketers. That’s although they hold a much higher profile than their women counterparts and are far better placed in terms of material support.

The recent West Indies men’s Test win was their first in nine tries — having lost seven and drawn one — since the Sammy-Chase tandem.

West Indies fast bowling was always going to be a handful for the visiting Sri Lankans in favourable conditions. So it proved.

In the second innings, in particular, the four-pronged pace attack — led by the 38-year-old Mr Kemar Roach who took his 300th Test wicket in the game — was near unplayable on occasions, as the Sri Lankans fell to an innings and 217-run defeat.

For all of that, though, it was West Indies batting — a massive headache for a very long time — which stole the spotlight. Man of the Match Mr Amir Jangoo, in only his second Test, stroked 233, and Mr Chase 194 — the latter’s first century in red-ball cricket in seven years — as West Indies reached 626 for nine declared. Statisticians say their sixth-wicket partnership of 401 is a world record.

Now, Mr Chase and his West Indies team enter Friday’s second and final Test optimistic of their first-series victory over Sri Lanka since 2003.

Hard-pressed from every direction, West Indies cricket badly needs that to happen. We wish the regional team well over the next five days.