Cricket / Fifth Test: Atherton's bright new leadership

IT WAS pertinent that, in the last match of the series, the two teams should finish their first innings dead even, with the West Indies losing five fewer wickets. That just about summed up the overall picture for both teams could claim gains from the past three months and certainly both learned lessons.

After two Tests it was hardly a contest. Even without major contributions from their two most experienced batsmen, Richie Richardson and Desmond Haynes, and with Carl Hooper's all-round talent and Ian Bishop's fast bowling missing through injury, the West Indies were so superior suggestions of another clean sweep were not misplaced.

When England suddenly and unexpectedly gained a winning position in Port of Spain, they were undermined by a dropped catch, the resilience of the West Indies lower order and Curtly Ambrose's exceptional afternoon spell.

That they should have come back so positively to win in Barbados of all places and hold their own under the weight of Brian Lara's monumental performance here is a tribute to the new leadership of Michael Atherton and Alec Stewart.

This was by no means a strong England team, young in terms of Test cricket and in the process of construction from a shaky base. But it will be the stronger in the capable hands of the new directorship.

The emergence of Jimmy Adams and Shivnarine Chanderpaul to join the magnificent Lara in the middle order has been a major development for the West Indies and Kenny Benjamin has become a Test bowler in a few short weeks. But they still depend too heavily on Ambrose and the time has arrived to look for a spinner or two.