England v West Indies: Marlon Samuels and Darren Sammy rely on spirit as inexperience costs tourists dear When Stanford's Superstars won their $20 million match against England, their captain Chris Gayle dedicated their victory to Samuels: improbable if he had been a bad egg. But as the West Indies sank to 63 for four yesterday, all this background was irrelevant. Their young top order had squandered a cloudless and swingless day, and a most benign pitch, as it was later shown to be by Samuels and Darren Sammy in their record partnership. Seldom in England outside the Oval could you get an opening session in more favourable batting conditions. But then the West Indian top order batsmen are so young, more youthful than policemen. They had some excuse for failing at Lord's - the cold for a start - but not to be blown away here. If they had done their job, Sammy would not yet have gone to the wicket and embarked on his merry swiping. Domestic cricket in the Caribbean does not prepare new batsmen. They have only six first-class matches per season, unless their team reach the semi-finals, in which case they have seven, or eight with a final. This isn't enough, for quantity never mind quality. Nobody in last season's domestic first-class competition scored 600 runs; only one batsman scored more than one century, Assad Fudadin, a reserve batsman on this tour, who made two. Maybe nothing can be done to revive the West Indian first-class competition. But there is no excuse for the West Indian board's failure to arrange "A" tours, so their young batsmen can experience livelier surfaces and more intense competition than at home. "A" tours are expensive, and do not generate publicity, but they are essential if the domestic scene is insufficient. So how many first-class A tours of Australia have the West Indian board arranged? Of New Zealand? Of South Africa? One, in 1997. Then their teenage prodigy Ramnaresh Sarwan could watch the A captain Jimmy Adams batting for more than a day against four Test bowlers who represented South Africa, and see how it was done. England would be worth touring too, for a taste of the conditions, whereas Asian pitches are too much like those in most of the Caribbean now. But the West Indies have played only two A Tests in this country, and they were against India A. It is only this year that the England and Wales Cricket Board have arranged an A Test at home for the Lions. Without the blessings of an adequate infrastructure, Samuels and Sammy fell back upon their spirit. Samuels has always been a fine player of spin, and Swann felt the power of his cover-drive, but he was not alone. Sammy doesn't bother with niceties like a leading elbow, and flailed at thin air when James Anderson took the second ball. If Sammy reaches three figures today it will be the worst international hundred against England in terms of technique since the Indian tail-ender Chetan Sharma squirted a ton in the Nehru Cup of 1989. What matters is how many, however, and the pair made enough to keep West Indies in this series.