Decisive stage for Sarwan

Ramnaresh Sarwan poses with the ICC World Twenty20 trophy at a press conference in Johannesburg © AFP

It is four years since he was first officially identified as the next West Indies captain and four months since his eventual appointment.

But, for a host of reasons, Ramnaresh Sarwan is still a relative novice in the post, still to settle in, still to be assessed by an expectant public as he leads the team into the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 tournament, with the opening match against hosts, South Africa, in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Although it is the newest, and shortest, form of the game, it is a high-profile event for which the West Indies are as well suited as any of their more favoured opponents. More to the point, it is a prelude to the particularly tough engagements to come - ODI and Test series in South Africa in December and January and at home against Sri Lanka and Australia next season.

A solid performance, even a place in the semi-finals, would be an immediate boost to Sarwan's standing. First round elimination, the consequence of losses to South Africa and Bangladesh, would have the opposite effect.

Sarwan did lead Guyana to the Stanford 20/20 championship and the US$1 million cheque last year. But he has captained West Indies through only one entire match, the first Test against England at Lord's in May, since he was given one of international cricket's most tenuous positions after Brian Lara's retirement following the World Cup malfunction.

Before the first day of the second Test was over, he was nursing the latest of the succession of injuries that have disrupted his career over the past 18 months. It eliminated him from the remainder of the series, pitchforked Daren Ganga into a challenge for the remaining Tests that overwhelmed him, and Chris Gayle to captaincy in the Twenty20s and ODIs in which he sparked a revival.

Sarwan's initial elevation to a senior role came in 2003 when he was made deputy to Lara on Lara's second coming to the job after the removal of Carl Hooper. Two years later, he, Lara and a few others were out as a result of the row over sponsorship contracts and the captaincy went to Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

It was a place in which the single-minded run-accumulator, distracted by discord within the team, was clearly uncomfortable. Yet when he quit after a year, the post didn't go to Sarwan, by then again vice-captain, but, for the third time, to Lara.

It was enough to raise Sarwan's doubts over whether he would ever gain the captaincy, a view reinforced when he was dropped from the second Test in Pakistan last November. It was, he said subsequently, a "very humiliating experience" that left him "very shocked [and] very angry". He did not believe it was justified but it made him "understand that sport is also about politics". Yet more anguish was to follow.

He had his foot broken by an Umar Gul yorker when reinstated for the next Test, eliminating him from the remaining ODIs in Pakistan and the four in India in January, and his thumb cracked by a Fidel Edwards bouncer in a Carib Beer Cup match as soon as he returned to action.

He recovered in time to be the leading run-scorer in the failed World Cup campaign that prompted Lara's exit and, at last, brought him the captaincy. His tenure did not last long. A fall on his shoulder as he tumbled in a vain effort to prevent a boundary in the Headingley Test in England took two months to mend. But "a lot of batting in the nets and a lot of gym work" have convinced him that he is fit and ready to return.

That is where the seventh West Indies captain in the last ten years stands as he resumes the task for which he has long been flagged. It is a decisive point in the career of Sarwan.

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