COLIN BENJAMIN: A Caribbean perspective on the West Indies 2-1 Test series victory over England, why it happened and what they need to do to capitalise on this success...
India winning the 1983 World Cup. Greece champions of Euro 2004. England's Ashes 2005 triumph. Australia defeating West Indies 2-1 in 1995. India's 2-1 Test series win versus Australia 2001.
Leicester City winning the 2014/15 Premier League. Cleveland Cavaliers winning the 2016 NBA title. Hasely Crawford winning the 1976 Olympics 100 meters. Nottingham Forest, European Cup winners of 1979.
What do those and many other similar sporting results have in common? They are all shocking results of an underdog team or individual upsetting the favourites.
Such results are the beauty of professional sport and as the old cricket idiom goes, "Cricket is game of glorious uncertainties" one can safely place West Indies 2-1 Test series win over England into that category.
However, all those unexpected triumphs were either seismic shifts or proved to be a false dawns. Which way does this series win suggest West Indies could go?
West Indies upset the odds to beat England 2-1
A lot of analysis now has noted that this was the first Windies series win over a higher ranked opposition since Darren Sammy's side won 2-0 against New Zealand in 2012.
While from an English perspective, it's the second time this millennium the West Indies have beaten them at home following a 1-0 triumph in 2009.
A British media narrative that the West Indies in decline is still a difficult place to win in a world cricket context also needs to be curtailed, considering the very successful results Australia, India, South Africa and New Zealand have had in the Caribbean since 2000.
England simply played bad cricket or didn't have a team capable of winning in Caribbean conditions on the last three tours.
However, none of the recent Windies wins compare to the 2-1 win against Sourav Ganguly's India in 2002. That was a powerful India side who were on the up, the respective New Zealand 2012 and England 2009 teams were not.
Also in the context of ICC ranking points where teams only move up in the standing for beating outright or at least drawing series against teams ranked higher, this is the first time in Holder's four-year captaincy where the Test team has accomplished this basic threshold.
The Cricket West Indies leadership have been making futile attempts in recent years to claim that individual Test wins in losing series were a sign of progress, such as when Windies beat England at Headingley 2017.
They weren't and the team remained ranked number eight.
The West Indies can now likely go in two directions. They could follow the modern trend of being a strong side at home and poor away like Sri Lanka, who were good enough to beat strong Australian and South African teams at home, but were so inconsistent otherwise that those triumphs were quickly forgotten.
Or they can become like New Zealand since 2014 and be a solid team capable of challenging the best teams in all conditions.
New Zealand have challenged plenty of bigger teams since 2014
Prior to this Test series win, the most noteworthy thing to happen to West Indies cricket that would affect how teams prepared for the longer format were the appointments of Grave and Adams in 2017.
The history of terrible leadership post-1995 is well documented and these two gentlemen coming in finally brought sane administrative nous to the board.
Grave coming from the Professional Footballers' Association in England slowly dismantled failed old policies and made more attempts to reach out to senior players who had become global T20 superstars, in an attempt to integrate them back into the team.
To top off their astute thinking were their pre-series decisions to have fast bowler friendly pitches and use the Duke ball. This was a notable change to the slow subcontinent type pitches that have been seen more recently in the Caribbean.
The bravery to have such conditions when England have two new-ball bowlers with over 1,000 Test wickets is commendable and was no doubt a key reason why the tourists lost.
One of the immediate questions floated after the series win was whether certain players in the team will remain committed to West Indies going forward or will gravitate towards T20 League riches.
In most parts of the cricket world, except India where the BCCI has banned their players from playing in other T20 leagues, a sane balance between boards and players being available for international duty and T20 commitments has been struck.
This hasn't occurred in the Caribbean because misguided administrators believed their broke cash-strapped board could bully players.
It never worked, thus players simply disengaged themselves from West Indies cricket and went to T20 leagues where they were paid and treated better.
While erudite observers supported the players for takings this stand, the legacy of this is that CWI were able to convince sections of Windies fans and media ridiculously that players were mercenaries.
As Nick Hoult in the Telegraph highlighted regarding West Indies cricket financial status during the Test series, the reality of problem will always come down to the administrators learning to be flexible:
"Whereas India will receive £320m from the ICC's events over the next four years, the West Indies will earn £99m. England's new broadcast deal from 2020 will bring in around £220m per year. For West Indies they expect to earn about £12m per year. Tours are reciprocal with home boards keeping revenue but also paying the costs of the touring team."
The Caribbean is a difficult place to run sports organisations and make profits as the Caribbean Premier League owned by Irishmen has learnt. Unlike CWI they get substantial financial backing from the regional governments and business and are still in the red.
CWI will never be able to pay more than T20 leagues, so unless players who are wanted by T20 leagues turn those franchise leagues down to play more for West Indies, the board will have the play second fiddle in negotiating or risk losing such players like those before them.
The Caribbean Premier league still loses money despite receiving local backing
The previously mentioned well deserved administrative praise for Johnny Grave and Jimmy Adams, should be quickly followed by cautioning any unsubstantiated credit interim coach Richard Pybus and president Dave Cameron might get.
A strong reminder is needed that they need to be removed as part of major administrative change at CWI to have any potential long-term on-field change of results.
Objectively, Pybus can be given zero credit for this victory. All evidence suggests that he was simply in the right place at the right time.
Despite the team struggling terribly in the last four years, Jason Holder was always progressing as a top-class allrounder.
Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel have been bowling brilliantly as a new-ball pair since the 2017 England tour, while Darren Bravo attained his 40 plus average on his own.
Young players Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer, Roston Chase and Shane Dowrich, in the midst of their inconsistency, had performances in recent years that validated them being persisted with.
Giving Pybus any credit would be just as ridiculous as the notion of the board that he was the architect of the 2016 triple world title triumph of men's, women's and under-19 teams.
It must never be forgotten how Cameron went around Jimmy Adams list of local coach candidates to replace Stuart Law and hand-picked Pybus, and that, prior to the series, CWI directors had publicly challenged Cameron to rescind his appointment.
The Cricket West Indies election is on March 23 and Cameron is running for a fourth term and he is simply grasping at this Test shock series win for his re-election bid to mask all the major failures of his tenure.
Hopefully, for once, board directors see through his foolishness as they did with the Pybus re-appointment infighting and elect a new president.
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