AFTER A little problem with visas to pass through Australia - their friends and competitors since 1930, the West Indies, on their way from Abu Dhabi, are now in New Zealand getting ready for a two-Test series which gets under way on Thursday (Wednesday evening Jamaica time).

Once again, West Indian cricket fans, including yours truly, are hoping for the best.

The fact that New Zealand have won the past three series and the West Indies lost all three one-day matches, from different positions, to Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, is of little importance.

What is important to the am-bitious West Indian fans is that although they still have in their line-up a spin bowler like Daniel Vettori, a batsman like Brendon McCullum and two all-rounders like Jacob Oram and James Franklin, even though they now possess a batsman like Ross Taylor and a pace bowler like young Tim Southee, New Zealand have lost to the Indian Cricket League, top batsmen like Nathan Astle, Hamish Marshall and Lou Vincent, plus ace fast bowler Shane Bond.

WI CAN WIN

On top of that, with batsmen like Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan, with a pace bowler like Jerome Taylor and arguably one like Fidel Edwards, with batsmen like Xavier Marshall and Leon Johnson and with a pace bowler like young Kemar Roach, fans believe that the West Indies boast three quality batsmen, one good fast bowler and a few talented and exciting young players.

The belief, according to the fans, and especially after New Zealand were thrashed by Australia, is that the West Indies can win and that is not surprising.

What is surprising, is that despite Ronald Peters' utterances that the players get into the West Indies team too early and that standards must be set; despite John Dyson's claim that the players are under-prepared; and despite Gayle's statement that the players make too many simple mistakes, the CEO, the coach and the captain all seem to believe that the West Indies can win.

Can the West Indies really win the series? Of course, they can, and they can for a few simple reasons.

First, as balanced as it appears, as well drilled as it may be, this New Zealand team, even though it is playing at home, is no great shakes.

Second, in Chanderpaul, Gayle, Sarwan, Taylor and Edwards, the West Indies have five players who can perform and if they do so together, the West Indies can be dangerous.

Third, it is a short two-match series and a little luck could be decisive.

Another question, however, is this: Do the West Indies, this West Indies, deserve to win, even against New Zealand?

The answer is no, and all because of what is happening, or based on what is planned for the coming first-class season, what was not happening in West Indies cricket.

In shambles

Peters, Dyson and Gayle are right in what they have said and there is no question about it. West Indies cricket is in shambles. West Indies cricket, as it is right now, cannot and will never produce outstanding players, enough of them, for the West Indies to become a good team, a great team or a team as dominant as it was up to the early 1990s.

West Indies cricket needs to be refreshed. West Indies cricket, from top to bottom, needs the support of those who play, those who watch, those who coach and those who administer.

It needs those who play to be committed to excellence. It needs those who watch to watch some and to be committed to excellence. It needs those who coach to be committed to excellence. And it needs those who administer to be committed to excellence and talk less about their own at whatever level.

Although the latest news is that there will be return matches in the four-day competition, although that is good news, most importantly, West Indies cricket needs a good structure.

West Indies cricket, just coming off a tournament, the one-day tournament, involving many people who can hardly play the game, needs to cater to the strongest teams around - to the teams with structures that intend to develop the game and the players, and particularly so the young players.

West Indies cricket, at the highest level, should be reserved for the best of the region, for national representation, for Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands.

First-class cricket

The others, those like the United States and Canada, those who pick up ex-first-class players from other countries to make up their team, those like the Combined Colleges and Campuses (CCC), who parade players who are not good enough to play first-class cricket and who select players who do not attend colleges and universities, have no business in first-class cricket.

In this day and age of professionalism, cricket, first-class cricket, is hardly the sport for a team of working people, of part-timers, whose emphasis should be on work and for a team of students whose emphasis should be on studying.

The students, for example, who want to play first-class cricket, those who, based on time, the time to train and to practice, can afford to play first-class, should play club cricket and move on from there.

If West Indies cricket is to recover its former glory, West Indies cricket has set some standards. A century innings against the US, against Canada, and even the CCC, should hardly be a recommendation for a place in the West Indies team.

Still, the question remains: Can the West Indies, despite all their short-comings, beat New Zealand? Of course, they can.

However, with New Zealand missing at least four of their top players, with Astle, Marshall, Vincent and Bond involved with the ICL and banned, it would be because New Zealand have come down to their level - to a level better than only Bangladesh.