For­mer West In­dies cap­tain Dwayne Bra­vo said on Sat­ur­day that the cur­rent play­ers rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies against Pak­istan is a lost group with many be­liev­ing that wind­ball crick­et is bet­ter or­gan­ised than what they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing with the Caribbean team in Dubai.

"I was there in Dubai and ba­si­cal­ly the play­ers were lost, the man­age­ment team was lost, every­thing just looked like we were school kids again, and the team meet­ings had no sort of pos­i­tive in­puts or any­thing like that. It was like we were just there," an ob­vi­ous­ly hurt Bra­vo stat­ed.

Bra­vo said that while in­di­vid­u­al­ly the West In­dies play­ers were al­ways mo­ti­vat­ed, the events lead­ing up to the team leav­ing the Caribbean dis­turbed the en­tire mo­men­tum of the squad.

"The hon­est truth is that it is very dif­fi­cult for a bunch of 15 guys to re­al­ly switch on when they are leav­ing for a se­ries and the day of the team trav­el­ling they find out that their head coach (Phil Sim­mons) was fired. Like which or­gan­i­sa­tion in the world would do things like that? This was a coach that had the sup­port of the en­tire team and one of the best coach­es we have had and he has done so much in a short pe­ri­od. Every­one knows that, and we were mak­ing pos­i­tives," stat­ed Bra­vo.

The mul­ti-tal­ent­ed West In­dies all­rounder said he was con­cerned about the im­pres­sion giv­en to the younger play­ers on the tour. "With­out Dwayne Bra­vo say­ing any­thing to the young play­ers, when those guys get there and re­alise what is go­ing on, their first state­ment is that their wind­ball team is bet­ter or­gan­ised," he added.

Bra­vo said he re­mains pas­sion­ate about the sport but no longer has the de­sire to play "this type of crick­et any more."

"While my pas­sion re­mains for the game and the sport, and I am al­ways mo­ti­vat­ed when I take the field, what about those young play­ers who I want to see come through. I no longer have that en­er­gy, that zeal to play a part in this type of crick­et, and while I speak for my­self, I echo the views of most of my team­mates. Guys no longer have that in­ter­est any­more and it is sad to say that at the mo­ment."

The West In­dies were swept in the three-match T20 se­ries and suf­fered loss­es in the two One-day In­ter­na­tion­als played so far.

Bra­vo said he is con­cerned about the fu­ture of crick­et in the re­gion and warned that change has to start at the re­gion­al lev­el. "If change comes at the ter­ri­to­r­i­al lev­el with the re­spec­tive crick­et boards, there is a chance for im­prove­ment."

He said that change must start with Trinidad and To­ba­go. "Time has come for change, the en­tire Caribbean fans, the peo­ple of the re­gion, are all hurt­ing, so we as play­ers as well, feel the hurt, feel very dis­ap­point­ed in the way how crick­et is be­ing run in Trinidad and To­ba­go and by ex­ten­sion in the West In­dies. I hon­est­ly do not see any­thing chang­ing if the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tors re­main and they know why they are do­ing the things to ac­tu­al­ly try to re­main. At the end of the day, I do not think they have the best in­ter­est of crick­et, it is all about egos and these kind of things," re­marked Bra­vo.

Bra­vo said there were T&T play­ers who be­lieved that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board do not sup­port them and do not have their in­ter­est at heart. He point­ed to him­self, Ke­iron Pol­lard, Sunil Nar­ine and Lendl Sim­mons. "It is dif­fi­cult in those cir­cum­stances to en­cour­age these play­ers to want to play in this en­vi­ron­ment. There is a strong pos­si­bil­i­ty that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go may nev­er get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness any of these play­ers come to­geth­er and rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go again. That is a sad sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple need to open their eyes and make changes," said Bra­vo.