Nothing lasts forever.' It's a mid-day headline I won't forget since that emerged from my first interaction with Sir Vivian Richards in April 1997. The West Indies had then surrendered their second Sir Frank Worrell Trophy on the trot to the Australians and a disappointed Richards put West Indies's decline down to a time cycle.

The West Indians under Courtney Walsh and Brian Lara had managed to beat Sachin Tendulkar's India 1-0 in the Caribbean, but they were not whipping the rest of the world like they used to. The back-to-back series losses to Australia didn't give rise to a revival and the West Indies have yet to regain the 1961-instituted trophy which they last took home in 1992-93.