It has not been a good few months for West Indies batsman Shai Hope, who was dropped by Barbados Tridents for their six-wicket defeat to Guyana Amazon Warriors on Thursday night.
When in form, the 26-year-old is an extremely classy player and his talent has never been in question.
His returns in both red and white-ball cricket have been poor recently, though, and he appears to have got himself into a rut.
After his struggles throughout the three-Test tour of England, the quick turnaround to the start of CPL 2020 could have been seen as a good thing.
The Bajan hadn’t managed to repeat his heroics of 2017 against the likes of Anderson, Broad and Woakes, but at least he’d be heading back to the sun and the chance to belt the white ball around Trinidad.
Yet, instead of releasing the pressure, the switch to T20 seems only to have created more problems.
Hope has kept wicket and opened the batting for the Tridents for the majority of the tournament but the runs haven’t flowed.
His top score of 36 came off 38 balls against Trinbago Knight Riders at Tarouba and he hasn’t managed to pass 30 in seven other innings, recording four single-figure scores along the way.
Barbados have struggled throughout, winning only two of their nine games to date, meaning they can no longer make the play-offs.
The extent of Hope’s recent struggles was shown by the fact that, for Thursday night’s must-win game against the Warriors, he was left out in favour of Shamarh Brooks, who hadn’t featured in any of the previous eight matches.
At this stage, it remains to be seen whether or not the hero of Headingly will return for his team’s final fixture against Jamaica Tallawahs on Saturday.
All batsmen go through lean periods and Shai Hope is clearly currently at a low ebb.
However, his career still has many years left to run and the West Indies’ highest-ranked ODI batsman needs to go away, reflect and come back stronger for the experience.