BOSTON, Massachusetts  —  Question:  Why does the current string of West Indies cricketers always do so badly when they encounter the professional teams from England, India, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand? Answer: Because they are a collection of amateurs, they panic at the first hint of wolf, lose confidence and collapse in shameful disorder. It happens almost every time, despite musical chairs with the captaincy, as the team continues to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
In this current Cricket World Cup competition in India and Sri Lanka, England were on the brink of a beating a week ago, but obviously knew well the West Indies knee-jerk behaviour; so they tapped their inner strength, applied their professionalism, lifted their game and embarrassed their opponents from the Caribbean.
The last four West Indies wickets fell in the space of 3 runs. They lost by 18 runs and had 34 deliveries remaining, more than enough time to seal the deal.  
That inept performance was so reminiscent of South Africa’s humiliation of the side right in their own home at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados, in May 2005, when Charl Langeveldt finished the one-day international with a hat-trick, whereas West Indies needed just one run to tie the score and two runs to win the match.
And just look at Sunday’s fiasco!  They dominated the match against India until nearing the end when the accustomed loss of nerve and feared collapse occurred.
Few teams in recent times can lay claim to having failed Sachin Tendulkar, undoubtedly the world’s most enduring and greatest batsman.
West Indies achieved that today when Tendulkar was dismissed for just 2, and were considered to have done exceptionally well, despite Yuvraj Singh’s century, to have the home team all out for 268 within the 50 overs.
The reply started well, and Devon Smith, the too-often failure from Grenada, batted courageously for 81; but again the middle- order wobbled and immediately the innings went into a horrid tailspin. Same old story.
The woes of our teams of amateurs – few of them with much grit – have changed little since the English discovered that for nearly a half century they had been grooming talented West Indian cricketers into hard-nerved professionals in the English league and county circuit to beat up their national teams and dominate the peaks of world cricket.
Once that system was drastically curtailed, and age caused its few surviving beneficiaries to vanish from the West Indies game, rapid deterioration in performance resulted.
Nowadays the guys are insisting on big bucks, and periodically go on strike, while continuing to produce embarrassingly little in terms of performance.
Whenever will we see the last of such “shamateurism”?