The reasons are twofold. One cannot totally blame the players exposed in the series for putting up such a poor performance against much superior opposition, because they have never been subjected to the standard of cricket which they came up against, before.
The second factor is that the Cricket Board has in the past five years or so, not given much thought to building up a second string team by promoting 'A' team, under 24 or under 19 cricket tours to this country nor abroad.
As a result, we suddenly find ourselves short of equally good replacements for the senior side. It would still have been kept in the dark had not West Indies decided to send its 'A' team to Sri Lanka.
The tour has proved to be a blessing in disguise for the fact that it really revealed where our cricketing stocks currently stand.
Gone are the days when a cricketer could walk into the national side while still at school. The last schoolboy to do so was lsipatana MV leg-spinner Sanjeeva Weerasinghe against India in 1985 at the age of 17 years, 189 days making him the youngest to play for Sri Lanka in a Test match.
Either the standard of school cricket in Sri Lanka has dropped drastically over the years, or may be other countries have raised their junior cricketing standards, that Sri Lanka now find it extremely difficult to produce quality batsmen and bowlers for which they were renowned.
Whatever the reasons, the Cricket Board has a major role to play in ensuring that the level of cricket internationally does not suffer for want of quality players to fill in the vacancies which are bound to be created within the next couple of years. The stark reality is that there are no Aravinda de Silvas nor any Arjuna Ranatungas on the surface to fill the void.
One other major factor for the poor showing by our second string cricketers is the standard of cricket they play in the domestic tournaments, namely division I Sara trophy, is nowhere near the opposition they faced against West Indies 'A'.
Our batsmen were found wanting in the need to stay at the wicket and graft for runs. They lacked the patience to wait for the loose balls which seldom came their way, unlike in the domestic tournament, and were guilty of playing many loose shots which led to their downfall.
The bowlers on their part, forgot the cardinal rule of bowling to one side of the wicket and paid the penalty.
Other than opening the eyes of what the future has in store for us, the series against West Indies 'A' only produced three individuals who are worthy of mention here - skipper Marvan Atapattu, all-rounder Ruwan Kalpage and opening bat Duleep Samaraweera.
The common factor with these cricketers is that they are all tested and tried products with the national team who are now waiting for a recall. Thus their performances at 'A' level had to be a notch above those trying to desperately bridge the gap between domestic and Test level.
The fact that as many as 20 players were exposed in the three unofficial Tests shows the desperation which exists with the national selectors.
Where Sri Lanka lost the series is largely due to the inability of the opening batsmen failing to match the starts provided by their West Indian counterparts.
Comparatively, Sri Lanka 'A's opening partnerships were: 0, 8, 63, 25, 5, 2, and West Indies 'A' partnerships: 87, 104, 75, 76.
The lack of a proper foundation to build an innings exposed the middle-order rather too early to the West Indian new ball bowlers who exploited our weaknesses to the full. The only time Sri Lanka got off to a decent start - 63 between Samaraweera and Chaminda Mendis at the SSC, Sri Lanka took a first innings lead of 67 over West Indies. But that opportunity was muffed up in the second innings when they were bundled out for a mere 95 runs chasing a moderate target of 165 for victory.
Whereas Sri Lanka 'A' did not have much to crow about from the series, West Indies 'A' had plenty. In Stuart Williams and Philo Wallace they had a fine opening combination, who together contributed 577 of the 1449 runs scored by West Indies 'A' in the series.
They also had a solid middle-order which showed its fallibility only against the off-spin of Ruwan Kalpage at the SSC.
What West Indies proved was that they have spinners who can bowl sides out in off-spinner Roger Harper and, young leg-spinner Rawl Lewis, who looks to have a very good future ahead of him, provided the West Indies selectors look at spin as a form winning matches.
Harper and Lewis combined to take 25 wickets between them, and only fast bowler Cameron Cuffy, who believed that he should have been in Australia and not Sri Lanka, was above them, taking 16 wickets at a personal cost of 16.56.
One factor to emerge from the series is that conducting matches of this nature outside the metropolis had its plus points because there were large attendances at each day's play at Kurunegala and Matara than at Colombo.
Both the Welagedera Stadium in Kurunegala and the Uyanwatte Stadium in Matara should be encouraged to improve their infrastructure by the Cricket Board and more international matches should be played there. Both grounds provided fair pitches which had something in it for batsmen and bowlers.
There are plans to upgrade Welagedera Stadium by the Kurunegala Urban Council who maintain it, with an improved scoreboard and pavilion.
The Uyanwatte Stadium which belongs to the Matara UC are however not so fortunate. Curator Lakshman de Silva bemoaned the lack of a roller, proper cutter, covers, lack of labourers and water (the city experiences a frequent water cut), telephone facilities, etc. With all these shortcomings De Silva, who is also the district cricket coach was able to get the stadium spruced up to stage the four-day unofficial Test.
The tour has proved to be an eye-opener to many things, mainly if our standard at international level is to be maintained into the next century, radical changes like upgrading the country's domestic tournament, frequent exchange of tours at this level with other countries and an ongoing pool of about 20 players capable of answering a call from the senior team, should be made a priority.
Even at this late stage, it is not too late to get things moving. One hopes the West Indies 'A' tour is just the beginning.