Once they were the hated tormentors, now English embrace the suffering West Indies For cricket fans raised in the 1970s and 1980s on the all-conquering Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards sides, creditable capitulation against an Australia naming Shane Watson in the spot once occupied by Don Bradman and Ricky Ponting seems like slim pickings indeed. It is Michael Holding you have to feel sorry for, compelled to commentate on calamity after catastrophe like a man providing a voice-over to home movies of his dog being run over. Albeit in a delightful baritone. You can only imagine what the worst lows of the past decade have been like for those who once ruled the cricketing world in West Indies colours, watching the next generation befoul their achievements, as if Michel Roux Jnr had turned Le Gavroche into a franchise of Subway. With the West Indies, we have only our memories and today's tantalising tastes of what might be. But probably will not be, or at least not for more than a session or two at a go. Kemar Roach harassing Ponting at Perth. Adrian Barath's century on debut. The leg-spin of Devendra Bishoo and, before he preferred instead to rally round the Kolkata Knight Riders, the bewildering tweakers of Sunil Narine. The heart of Fidel Edwards. The appetite for destruction, and money, of Kieron Pollard. Shiv Chanderpaul, still. The determined decency of Ottis Gibson. The first act of this most recent Test, when West Indies declared an innings against Australia for the first time since 1991. It is not Malcolm and Andy, or Viv, or Curtly and Cuddy. But then, what could be? It seems to me that there is a strain of Stockholm syndrome that afflicts the English sports fan; that we come to embrace our once-hated tormentors. As Centre Court rose to greet late-period Pete Sampras, as Shane Warne and the artist formerly known as The Evil Glenn McGrath were cheered off the Oval, as Stephen Hendry became the Crucible statesman, we come to cherish those we once feared. Especially now that, you know, they are not so good anymore. The West Indies are touring England this summer. At one time, those were the eight most upsetting words in the language for the English county cricketer, perhaps behind only "Gatt's had first use of the lunch buffet." Now, sadly, they come in peace; but surely any English cricket fan with a soul wants to see the opponent who once humiliated us return to the top table of the world game? It does not look very likely, but if they beat England to do so, I suspect that there will be more than a few English fans cheering them on.