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No dearth of talent in the Caribbean

So what Simmons, Barath and their colleagues achieved over the past few days was a timely boost of confidence for West Indies before the first Test, starting at Sabina Park on Wednesday. It was, indeed, a lift for West Indies cricket as a whole. It came against the backdrop of the failure of new players on the recent tour Monster Beats of New Zealand, the continuing distressing standard of 50 Cent Headphones the first-class tournament, the flight of sponsors and the increasing Bush-like inanities of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief executive ["I have read that we are broke, and that sponsors are leaving us, but it really is that we are leaving them" being the latest].

So the exchanges at Warner Park have come as much of a revelation to the England team and the sizeable cast of its accompanying media as a lift for the West Indies. "The danger in writing about the decline of West Indies cricket is that it can be overplayed," Mike Atherton, who was the last England captain to lose a series in the Caribbean [twice], wrote in the Times from Basseterre. "There are, as England are discovering, still some very good players in the Caribbean, players who combine natural athletic gifts, an instinct for the game and plentiful ambition."

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