Will the real West Indies please stand up?

West Indians across the world, many of whom stayed away from their weekly religious services, got yet another disappointment from the West Indies cricket team when the cricketers lost in a rather putrid manner to the world leaders, Australia, two Sundays ago.
Australia handed the West Indies team an embarrassing eight-wicket defeat in India, much to the disappointment of a massive Indian crowd considered partial to the West Indies.
The result of the finals of the ICC Champions Trophy on Sunday should come as no surprise since it is consistent with the outcome of the final of the Tri-Nations Series a few weeks ago.
One common denominator was that the West Indies team was involved in both finals.
A second common denominator was that the West Indies lost both. A third common denominator was the devastating and irresponsible manner in which the West Indies team capitulated to the opposition.
Throughout both Tournaments it was clear to some that while the West Indies showed instances of sheer cricketing brilliance there were several occasions when they performed in an unbelievable manner suggesting that the team is far from maturation and that the silver lining behind the very dark clouds are as remote as it has ever been.

Which West Indies Team?
On Saturday 4th November 2006, one day prior to the big final between Australia and the West Indies, I asked someone about the chances of the West Indies team in the ICC Champions Trophy final. The response was: “It all depends on which West Indies team shows up tomorrow.”
On hindsight, the response was deadly accurate. It all depended on which West Indies team showed up.
The performances of the West Indies team continue to defy logic.
The presence of Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan, suggests that we have players who can hit the ball and who have on record some outstanding performances with the bat. In the case of Chris Gayle, we have witnessed some good performances as well with the ball.