Batting order still a bother

Carl Hooper was right.

There were positives out of the Golden Test at the Queen's Park Oval as, indeed, there were from the first at Bourda.

After a year in which three-day and even twoday defeats were commonplace, the West Indies have been competitive against an experienced, well balanced and confident team. They have carried two Tests into the final session of the final day and held their own.

The new, born-again captain has added consistency and substance to batting style and has led astutely. The young batsmen have prompted optimism for the future. Dinanath Ramnarine has added a dimension to the attack that has so often been missing. Merv Dillon is bowling with the assurance a settled place brings.

And then there is the ageless Courtney Walsh.

Cricket's Methuselah simply keeps astounding us with the consistent quality of his bowling. His figures at Queen's Park were 57.4-18-108-8. No wonder Pat Rousseau is singing, just one more time.

Yet, when all is said and done, the West Indies lost a match in which they led on first innings for the first time for ten Tests and when they failed to make the lowest of the four totals to win.

As everyone knew they would be, the South Africans have been tough and disciplined, more so last Wednesday when it mattered most. They are ahead and will not be easily caught now, far less passed.

As Hooper stood helpless at the opposite end while the last five wickets tumbled for 19, his anguish was plain to see. The television doesn't only reveal inside edges onto pads and balls pitching outside leg-stump.

He had done all he could to pull the match back after the disastrous morning and, at the end, he might have reflected since on a few points.

The batting order is one.

He has given his reasons for pencilling himself in at No. 6. It is a position from which a class and experienced batsman can shepherd a lengthy tail and he has taken on the job himself.

All well and good, but he has now found himself twice stranded with runs on the board and Walsh as his partner. In the first innings at Bourda, he was last out for 69; on Wednesday he was unbeaten 54.

Surely, in an order including four batsmen with no more than a year in Test cricket and only 37 runs between them, there is a case for Hooper (82 Tests in a dozen years) reverting to his previously favoured position of No. 5.

No. 3 is even more critical and it is placing an enormous responsibility on Marlon Samuels to put him there.

He has handled every assignment given him since he came into the West Indies team in Adelaide in December with the aplomb and maturity of someone who will be a permanent and productive fixture in the West Indies team for the next 15 years.

He is a rich talent but, at 20, a mere babe. He had only once ever gone in one down in a first-class match before being sent there at Bourda and his highest first-class score remains 61.

He can hardly be expected to suddenly reel off hundreds at the highest level.

The obvious man for the position is Brian Lara but the team's best batsman is clearly not comfortable there.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Wavell Hinds have filled it successfully since Lara chose to drop to No. 4 but Chanderpaul is not yet back in the team and Hinds has been retained as opener after Australia.

Chanderpaul's credentials are such that he must return, sooner rather than later, but Samuels has shown such promise already he will have the chance to install himself at No. 3.

It is a task that might overwhelm others of his age and inexperience. The hope is that it won't have that effect on Samuels.

There were two side issues at Queen's Park.

The most encouraging was the size of the crowds. On the first two days, on the weekend, estimates were of 18 000 and 20 000. On the last day, a Wednesday, there were 12 000. They were figures not seen for years.

To judge by their dwindling attendances, Trinidadians had seemingly lost interest in watching Test cricket and had transferred their affection to the one-day stuff instead.

Perhaps the spirited performances at Bourda and over the first four days at Queen's Park brought them out. It was an intense, low-scoring, match, real Test cricket and the antithesis of the abbreviated game. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

No one could enjoy the umpiring.

There were, by the television-confirmed count, eight clear errors. In the end, they probably evened themselves out but Wavell Hinds, Jacques Kallis and Brian Lara would not be consoled by that.

It has become a real problem already highlighted by the recent series in Australia and Sri Lanka.

More use of the television technology would be helpful but, as Mike Atherton observed yesterday, it is time the International Cricket Council must employ a group of competent and professional young umpires with recent Test experience.

Those who stood at Queen's Park, the Australian Darrell Hair and the Dominican Billy Doctrove, are not out-andout professionals. Only the English umpires are.

Every single one should be.