Chris Gayle and Clive Lloyd keep referring to the West Indies team under their charge in South Africa as young.
Dr.Donald Peters, the chief executive officer of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), notes that it is presently the second youngest in international cricket.
They are all strictly correct. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Pedro Collins and Rawl Lewis are the only three of the 15 here over 30. Six are under 25.
Yet it is a chronological illusion. The youthful average age is in direct contrast to the overall international experience.
Chanderpaul, Ganga, Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Jerome Taylor and the injured, absent Ramnaresh Sarwan all first appeared for the West Indies as teenagers.
Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin made their debuts at 20, Fidel Edwards and Devon Smith at 21.
They are now relatively old hands at the game. Only Ramdin, Darren Sammy, Runako Morton and the newcomer, Brenton Parchment, have been less than three years in Test cricket.
Bravo is a typical example of the experience gathered in the several short careers.
Still only 24, he has already toured Australia, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and Zimbabwe and played in one World Cup and two Champions Trophy tournaments.
Like so many others, he was the outstanding individual in his first series, in England in 2000.
Sarwan’s unbeaten 81 in his debut Test innings against Pakistan (Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saqlain Mushtaq, Mushtaq Ahmed, Abdul Razzaq) prompted the watching Ted Dexter, the England captain of an earlier generation, to predict an eventual Test average of over 50.
Samuels was another who made an immediate mark. Steve Waugh was so impressed with his class when he came in as a replacement in Australia seven years ago, aged 19, he presented him with his favourite red handkerchief.
Yet, with the prominent exception of Chanderpaul, every young West Indian has regressed.
Sarwan’s batting average has slipped from the mid-40s to 38.76. Only Chanderpaul (46.63), Gayle (38.28) and Bravo (34.24) of those in South Africa are above 30.
The same holds true of the bowlers of whom Collins’ 34.63 is the lowest.
The task of the new coach, John Dyson, over the coming six months is clear. And so should the message to his players.
Dyson himself has recognised it.
“The team has tremendous potential and I don’t think they are achieving it,” he told the BBC last month. It is a self-evident truth.
“They’re quite capable of moving up the ICC tables (where they now stand eighth out of nine) and, from my point of view, it’s important they have the ability to do that, so it’s an area I can work on.”
It is a task that has proved beyond the long line of those who have preceded him. Each one has departed, either of their own frustrated accord or by the pink slip from the WICB, while most of the players have remained.
Andy Roberts, himself one of the previous coaches and now selector, stated after the selection for this tour that the “stakeholders”, as he termed them, remained because genuine contenders have not emerged from the sub-standard first-class tournament in the Caribbean.
In other words, the “stakeholders” have become complacent, knowing their places are virtually secure however much they underachieve.
It is a state of affairs that has run its course.
The selectors must be guided over the coming three months, for the subsequent home series against Sri Lanka and Australia, by performances in the Tests and ODIs against South Africa and in the simultaneous Carib Beer Series in the Caribbean.
Batsmen whose averages are stuck in the mid-20s and bowlers who have made little progress after several years Test cricket must know that their places will go to those back home who verify their claims with runs and wickets at regional level.
And the WICB can back up its recent stated intention to smother the team with love by providing them with as much technical support as other Test teams now enjoy as a matter of course through bowling and fielding coaches (especially fielding) and qualified physical trainers.
Otherwise, it will be the same old, same old.
They may have been still too many, but the West Indies conceded 10 wides, not 20, as stated in my report on their match against the Makhaya Ntini XI in East London on Friday night.
