The West Indies team is now in South Africa preparing for The Champions Trophy. West Indians everywhere, especially those who like sports, particularly those who love cricket, wish the players well - even though they are far from being the best in the region, even though they are some 36 players off the best, and even though, as a unit, they are unlikely to win even one match.

After rising to the best in the world, to probably being the greatest cricket team in history, to arguably being the most dominant team in the history of team sport, the West Indies have fallen on hard times, and while many fans, and others, have come up with all kinds of reasons for the present predicament, the reasons are simple.

The reasons, and there are so many of them, include the decline in the love for the sport, the lack of support for the sport - not so much in terms of sponsorship, but more so in terms of spectator support - the decline in membership of the clubs - highlighted by the failure of the West Indies Board to insist that players sign the contracts or stay home, not to mention the failure to get the coach to sign a contract for 18 months - the decline in the quality of those who lead the sport at club, national, and regional levels.

When it is remembered that competition is vital to development, that up to a few years ago, in Jamaica for example, there was a minimum of 14 matches per team every season in the club competition and that this season, again for example, the teams in the top competition played only seven matches each with no cricket played since June 13, with not a ball bowled during the summer months of July and August, the reasons also include a decline in both the quantity and the quality of competitions.

skills development

While there is no denying that there are more competitions being played today than there were yesterday - they are competitions designed to spread the gospel of the game - some of them are tailored to suit the purpose of the sponsors, and while there is a time when more is merrier, that is not necessarily good for the development of skills.

What is also not good for the development of skills is the tendency of West Indians to be hypocritical - to shy away from speaking the truth and, especially so, when it comes to coaches and managers.

According to coach David Williams, according to manager Lance Gibbs, the West Indies in South Africa for The Champions Trophy is not a second-string team. According to them, it is the West Indies team. It should be treated as such. It is going to represent the people as such, it is talented, and it is going to surprise by winning matches.

While Floyd Reifer, the captain, may be forgiven for also uttering similar sentiments, it is difficult to accept such hypocrisy from the coach and the manager.

There must be a difference between reality and fiction. There must be a difference between what one can expect someone to believe and what no one will believe. And for Williams and Gibbs to tell West Indian fans that this team is not a second-string team, that this team has plenty of talent, that the team possesses the capacity to perform well, that it is a young team, and that, as a team, they would be okay for the series, they must be joking!

Either that, or they believe the West Indian people are fools.

That has been a problem with West Indies cricket in recent times: the captains, the coaches, the managers, and even sometimes the board members themselves always seem to be saying nice things about the players - even about those who do not perform.

Williams may have a reason to say what he said, but while I am hoping and praying for the best for the players who have accepted to represent the West Indies and who, obviously, will try their best; while I know that Kieron Powell is only 19 years old, that André Fletcher, Kemar Roach and Kevin McClean are only 21 years old and that Chadwick Walton is 24, I cannot accept and I do not accept that a 15-man team with three players between 32 and 37 years old, with seven players between 25 and 28, can be and should be described as a young team.

As far as talent is concerned, Powell, Roach, Fletcher and McClean are still young and could develop and really make a name for themselves in time to come. But with some of the batsmen parading batting averages which would be great as bowling averages - some of them very great at that, with some of their bowlers, most of their bowlers, parading bowling averages which would look good as batting averages, it would be surprising if they performed okay during the tournament.

Regardless of what manager Gibbs may say, with so many players, some 36 of them according to West Indies Players' Association, not available, the West Indies team to The Champions Trophy in South Africa can be described as nothing but a second string-team.

To be truthful, there are so many players unavailable, or for whatever reason, not considered, that this team should be described, at best, a fourth-string team.

comparison

Last but certainly not least.

Gibbs has been quoted as comparing this team with Frank Worrell's team of 1960-61 to Australia. He talked about Worrell's team being unheralded, about it being accepted by Australia even though it was unheralded, how it went close to winning, and how it surprised everyone.

I would like to remind Gibbs, a truly great off-spin bowler, that but for Roy Gilchrist, the players on that team were the best West Indies players at the time. Apart from Worrell - a great captain and a great batsman - the players on the team included the likes of Garry Sobers, then world record holder and immortal, Rohan Kanhai, Conrad Hunte, Seymour Nurse, Joe Solomon, Franz Alexander, Jackie Hendriks, Gibbs himself, Sonny Ramadhin, Alfred Valentine and Wes Hall, and that the performance of the team did not surprise me.

It is also interesting to note, that while Worrell, with nine 100s, including two doubles, was 36 years old at the time, Reifer is 37 with a top score of 29 and an average of 9.25. Sobers and Kanhai were already on their way to greatness at age 24. Others like Hunte and Nurse with runs to their names were 28 and 27, while Devon Smith, with one century after 31 matches, is 27 years old.

spin twins

While Ramadhin and Valentine, the famous and great spin twins, were 31 and 30, respectively, and had stunned the world with their brilliance 10 years earlier, Nikita Miller is 27. He has only played one Test match against Bangladesh and did not take a wicket. Gibbs himself was 26 and had played in three series earlier and while Hall, a terror to world batsmen, was only 23, the likes of Tino Best and Gavin Tonge are 28 and 26, respectively, one with 28 wickets in 14 matches in six years, and one still to play a Test match.

Lest it be forgotten, while the batsman and bowlers of 1960-61 went into that series with dozens of centuries and hundreds of wickets between them, the batsmen are going into The Champions Trophy with one Test century between them, and the bowlers with 70 wickets between them - 53 between Best and Sammy.

To compare Worrell's team with these guys is crazy, and in doing so, Gibbs, a sane man, must have been joking!