India, Oct. 25 -- Michael Manley, Jamaica's prime minister from 1989 to 1992, and the son of the country's first premier Norman Manley, was, like most West Indians, an ardent cricket fan and a student of the game. His painstaking work, A History of West Indies Cricket - written in 1987 (when the Caribbean islands enjoyed a decade of dominance that world cricket, world sport, or world anything, had rarely seen before); and revised in 1994 (soon after Brian Lara changed batting records forever with his singular hunger for runs) - has been a majestic constituent of my personal library for over two decades.

This month, the meek capitulation of the once-mighty West Indies - they entered India almost unnoticed for a one-sided two-Test series n...