Quote:Expecting a monotonous reply, I asked: "Is there something that you regret not achieving in cricket?" The question, designed to draft an end to the conversation, offered a human touch instead.

"Yes, it's just gone," the tone of Dwayne Smith's voice drops with each word that he utters, giving away a poignant cocktail of emotions that he is trying to suppress by avoiding an eye contact. "I really wanted to play the last World Cup," he tells Cricbuzz.

As video clippings of the 'Champion' dance from the Caribbean islands and other parts of the world went viral following West Indies' World Twenty20 win, Smith sat sulking in front of his television set still wondering what wrong he did not to merit a place in the squad. "But what can you do? You can't do nothing about it now. It's gone. I liked that the guys won it. But I'm really really disappointed," he says overcoming the choke in his voice. The very statement turned the mood of the conversation in which Smith was, until then, a proud narrator.

"I'm thinking it was going to be my last World Cup, so I really felt sad and disappointed at not getting selected after knowing that I've the second-most runs in T20 cricket since 2011." He was quite accurate with his numbers, and if purely cricketing reasons are to be argued, there was very little that went against him. In fact, just before the team was selected for the World Cup, he had smashed a couple of half-centuries in four matches, including a Man of the Match innings in the Pakistan Super League final.