We’ve got to go back 15 years, to the 1999 home series against Australia, to find as unlikely a turnaround for the West Indies’ as that in the second Test against New Zealand at the Queen’s Park Oval on Friday.
The circumstances were almost identical; even the margin of victory by 10 wickets was the same.
West Indies cricket has floundered for so long that any straw is eagerly clutched at. Normally, it would be fanciful to base any optimism on nothing more than a solitary victory over tough, resilient but hardly intimidating opponents; in this case, the expectation is that the impact of the latest revival won’t be as transitory as that in 1999.
The transformation then was inspired by the unique genius of one man, Brian Lara,