West Indies have the talent to challenge the top teams

Living in the era of West Indies cricket's decline has been a frustrating experience for me.

The sense of schadenfreude is always poignant when stories are related by people who saw the great Caribbean players in action from 1960 to 1995. Their pleasure at witnessing those legends is the misfortune of all contemporary West Indies fans. Watching Sir Garfield Sobers' all-round brilliance, Vivian Richards intimidating fast bowlers, Malcolm Marshall outfox batsmen, and Sir Frank Worrell, the first black West Indies captain and cricket statesman, leading the regional side would have completed my life.

Fast-forward to West Indies' World T20 triumph, which signified the first signs of real progress the team and fans have been searching for after 17 years of insipid performances.

Although West Indies won the 2004 Champions Trophy, it was a similar fluke to Greece shocking the football world with their 2004 European Championship success. The victory didn't signal a seismic shift in fortunes. West Indies' performance in the subsequent years proved that unequivocally.

The current set-up is not the '70s and '80s team reincarnated, but it's clearly the most talented group of West Indies players to have emerged since the mid-1990s. These players should be challenging the elite nations in all formats.

Jerome Taylor, Kemar Roach, Ravi Rampaul and Jason Holder, alongside emerging pace men Shannon Gabriel, Sheldon Cottrell, Ronsford Beaton and Miguel Cummins, form the best fast-bowling group since the legendary Ambrose/Walsh duo retired. A notable improvement to the days of Pedro Collins, Mervyn Dillon, Nixon McLean, Reon King, Adam Sanford, Daren Powell, Cameron Cuffy, Marlon Black, Hendy Bryan, Lion Baker, Kerry Jeremy, Dwight Washington, Colin Stuart, Franklyn Rose and Corey Collymore as the designated fast men.

The slow-bowling skills that Sunil Narine, Shane Shillingford, Devendra Bishoo and the returning Sulieman Benn bring haven't been available to West Indies for ages. The last time spinners caused such fervour in the Caribbean was when Lance Gibbs, Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine marshalled the attack in those formative years. Their successors, Nehemiah Perry, Gareth Breese, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Rawl Lewis, Omari Banks, Neil McGarrell, were simply dross.

If the ICC's bowling crackdown doesn't ban him foolishly for chucking, Narine is just a few big Test performances away from being acclaimed the best spinner in the world.

The batting has a very good blend of veterans - Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels - and young talent - Darren Bravo, Kraigg Brathwaite, Kieron Pollard, Lendl Simmons and Jermaine Blackwood to cover bases in the three versions. Denesh Ramdin is finally batting to potential and the standard required for 21st-century wicketkeeper batsmen. Dwayne Bravo and Andre Russell are two supremely talented allrounders, and now that Jacques Kallis is retired, Bravo, especially, can easily rise above his competitors and be the premier allrounder in world cricket.

Few teams can boast the hitting power that Pollard, Bravo, Russell and Sammy possess in limited-overs cricket.

So with no obvious weak points, it's strange to see them not evolve since the 2012 victory. The general feeling that they are just T20 specialists doesn't do their talent justice.

However, as the old adage goes, sport is 10% talent and 90% hard work, and the players have to show that in their next four series against the major nations and in the World Cup.

Under the current Future Tours Programme (FTP), where teams don't play home/away in a coherent manner, for West Indies, under their current status on the field and financially, to play India, South Africa, England and Australia consecutively is a unique occurrence.

Therefore, unless the widely condemned Big Three, who took over the ICC, decide to make changes to the FTP, West Indies are essentially on trial. Good performances will result in more matches versus those teams, and it will help the West Indies board financially, because its revenue streams are limited.

If the current standoff between the board, the players and the players' association is resolved, and doesn't lead to another strike, West Indies will be capable of doing very well in the upcoming contests.

In the post-Tendulkar era, India continue to look vulnerable and can be beaten. A World Cup semi-final place is an achievable target, and the rebuilding England team without Kevin Pietersen should be tested in Caribbean conditions. Defeats against South Africa and Australia will be expected, but West Indies can be competitive.

Will the real West Indies please stand up?