Far from palatable taste to Windies' fall from grace

Record crowds, euphoric scenes, unbridled jubilation. Joy has been abundant in England during the last twenty-four hours as the nation's cricketing fraternity has started to come to terms with its team's home series triumph over West Indies - a feat it has taken thirty-one years from the time of its last such success to achieve.

In a broader sense, though, there is as much cause for regret as for revelry about the outcome of this series. While the winners' elation - and their desire to celebrate their 3-1 success - is entirely understandable, cricket supporters would probably do just as well to take a moment to mourn the continuing tragedies of a once revered force. No team in recent memory has proved so consistently disappointing or fallen either so abruptly or so far from glory as this West Indian exemplar.

The low ebb at which the West Indians now find themselves represents the complete antithesis of what had become a norm over the one-and-a-half decade span between the late 1970s and early 1990s. Through those years, there was no more dominant force in cricket than the West Indian team - based as it was on a combination of outrageous skill, flair and aggression. Not to mention, of course, the small matter of the sheer brutality of its fast bowling attack.

That it has, over the course of the last two years, been consigned to the status of an easybeat represents a sad reflection on the extent of its decline. That it has won only so much as one Test match overseas in the space of close to four years is an indictment of its contemporary players and approach. That it has been dismissed sixteen times in its last twenty-one Tests for totals under 200 - and on three of these occasions for less than 70, in fact - is a stunning reminder of the very extent to which things have gone awry.

For a specifically Australian audience, the decline certainly represents as much bad news as it does good. With the national team poised on the brink of establishing a new world record for the number of consecutive wins in Tests, it could barely have handpicked for itself an easier opponent than the one it will face when it returns to the five-day arena in November. Seemingly so anyway.

Where the men from the Caribbean have traditionally held huge advantages over the Australians, the state of affairs appears to have been almost completely reversed. In the pace department, for instance, Australia's wealth of riches ensures that the likes of Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie and Damien Fleming (and a range of others in state ranks) will be queuing up for their chance. Meanwhile, it is unclear whether Courtney Walsh (the man who, even at 38 years of age, would overwhelmingly shape as his side's key fast bowler) will tour at all. Even with Brian Lara and Jimmy Adams in their line-up, the tourists' batting looks as shaky and as bereft of confidence as it has done at any time in recent memory; cast against the likes of Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Justin Langer and Mark Waugh, it seems that there currently exists a significant divide in both output and assurance. And on the wicketkeeping front, it's hard to argue that Adam Gilchrist does not hold a distinct advantage over Ridley Jacobs in terms of recent form, both with the gloves and the bat. It should all provide cause for substantial optimism as Australia sets about trying to carve an exalted place in history.

But it's equally difficult to imagine that even the Australians themselves, men who instinctively pride themselves these days on playing to the very best of their collective ability, will be entirely satisfied by the prospect (if it arises) of beating substandard opposition. More widely, it is also difficult to know what the public might make of a series more lopsided than those which have preceded it on Australian soil in the recent past. And, therein, lies a potentially grave problem for all who administer and follow the game closely in this country.

If there is any form of a repeat of the debilitating lack of application with the bat which the tourists illustrated against England, then there might well be an even more noticeable drop in interest than the one which meant that some of the concluding matches of last summer's international program in Australia were played out before smaller than expected crowds. It's far from unreasonable to draw the conclusion that the ability of England (which itself has not even come close to conquering Australia in a Test series at any stage over the last thirteen years) to dismiss the West Indians this year for totals as meek as 54, 157, 172, 61 and 125 bodes ill for the prospects of a vaguely competitive summer. While Walsh and Curtly Ambrose have been typically inspiring with the ball, another huge concern s the lack of emerging pace bowlers. That the latter's decision to retire from the game will clearly rob them of what, for the last decade, has been their meanest attacking weapon makes the predicament all the more lamentable.

Traditionally, West Indian tours have been well supported by Australian crowds. The appearance of the Calypso Kings has, in fact, resonated with fans in this part of the world ever since the dramatic 1960-61 series between the teams famously set new standards in cricketing excitement, skill and sportsmanship. Perhaps it's just as well then that this season's tourists - forty years on from a series that remains cast in stone as arguably the most competitive ever - still have close to three months to discover a way of turning a dire situation around.