Youth skipper struggling

It's a tale of two boys.

One, the captain, is struggling. The other, his deputy, is sparkling.

That's the situation with West Indies Under-19 cricket captain Brenton Parchment and vice-captain Devon Smith.

The touring team won the final One-Day match on Monday to beat England Under-19 2-1 in the series.

But Parchment, the tall Jamaican, had scores of just 14, 6 and 12, while Smith, a left-hander from Grenada, has made brilliant knocks of 75, 66 and 102 not out.

But manager Jeff Broomes is not too worried about his captain going into today's three-day match against Development of England South at the picturesque Arundel Ground. The four-day Test series starts at Grace Road next Monday.

He (Parchment) is going to be all right. He's not got many runs but over the last few days he's played some nice-looking shots and he's coming out of the bad patch of form, Broomes said.

He's still confident and that's the good thing about it. He handled things very well in the field and I was pleased about that.

Before we came to England his batting had been very, very good.

Unfortunately, he's had a bit of difficulty coming to grips with the conditions. But he has shown strength by not internalising the difficulties.

Smith has handled himself very well and seized the initiative from the opposition every time he has gone to the crease.

A match review in The Times newspaper yesterday referred to him as a lithe left-hander who is well balanced and gets into position early.

Smith showed great power for a man so small, twice hoisting Justin Bishop, England's seven-wicket bowling hero of the previous match, into the crowd.

His instinct, like that of most West Indian batsmen, is to clatter every ball into or beyond the boundary boards, but he shares with the best of that breed a solid defence and the capacity to rein himself in when the situation demands, The Times added.

Already a mainstay of the Windward Islands top order, it would be no surprise if he were to make his full international debut in months rather than years.

Coach Gus Logie was also pleased with the way the tour had gone so far and expected the other players to emerge as conditions became warmer.

England was going to [present] foreign conditions for many of them. And we felt that the few practice matches we had in Trinidad before we left really did not give us the level of confidence needed to tackle England on their soil, the former West Indies vice-captain said.

Once we arrived, we sensed that the confidence was building and the players were getting accustomed to playing in the conditions.

But the players worked hard and they focused when it really mattered and they came up trumps in the end.