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For the past couple of weeks, we've been watching the future of West Indies cricket expressing itself across the length of Barbados, from the familiar venues in Bridgetown to the delightful North Stars ground on the northern tip of the island in Crab Hill and the superbly appointed Windward Club in St. Philip.

The six teams have now reduced themselves to the two finalists for the 16th Nortel Under-19 tournament and Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago began their battle for the title at Kensington yesterday in a repeat of the senior final for the Busta Cup back in March.

There has been the natural flag-waving support for Barbados and those who managed to tear themselves away from Bridgetown Market yesterday to watch the opening day were hardly neutral. The opponents, after all, were Trinidadian.

But the main purpose of the tournament would not be lost on those who have chased the matches around, taking in an opening session here, a pre-tea period somewhere else and finishing the day off at yet another ground.

They would have been talent spotting, identifying those teenagers on whom the West Indies will have to depend in the first decade of the 21st century.

If nothing else, it made a welcome diversion from the unseemly politicking that has attracted too much attention beyond the boundary.

By weight of runs alone in a generally low-scoring tournament, three batsmen have stood out: captain Ryan Hinds of Barbados, Marlon Samuels of Jamaica, and Narsingh Deonarine of Guyana.

The left-handed Hinds and the right-handed Samuels had long since stated their cases.

They were in the West Indies team to the youth World Cup in South Africa last year and have both played first-class cricket at senior level. They are supposed to dominate in such company and have duly done so.

Perhaps the most encouraging feature about their cricket is that they also both bowl respectable finger spin.

It would be better if they could hurl down yorkers at 90 mph but that would be asking too much.

For the moment, it is heartening to see a trend towards all-rounders, for there were others in that category.

The strongest teams of the moment, Australia, South Africa and Pakistan, have emphasised the value of having batsmen who can bowl and bowlers who can bat. It is a current West Indian deficiency compounded by the departure of Carl Hooper.

Deonarine does not bowl but, in many respects, he has been the most exciting prospect of the tournament.

He did not arrive entirely unannounced. In last year's Carib Cement Under-15 Tournament in Jamaica, he accumulated 229 runs in five innings, including an unbeaten 113 against Barbados, and they only managed to get him out once.

Here, his unbeaten 142 against Barbados and 131 against Trinidad and Tobago were marathons that revealed concentration, determination and stamina rare in a 16-year-old.

His placement and his refusal to hit the ball in the air were other impressive features.

As he is slim, almost frail, aged 16, and an Indo-Guyanese, the comparisons with Shivnarine Chanderpaul are inevitable. But they are not misplaced.

Whether he can step into first-class cricket in another two years and take a hundred off a touring team, as Chanderpaul did against Pakistan at 18, or step into Test cricket at 19 as if he had been there all his life, as Chanderpaul did, only time will tell.

His two big scores were on a lifeless pitch at Queen's Park and he would not have encountered many fast, bouncy surfaces back home.

Such change of conditions have undone many young Guyanese batsmen and it will be interesting to see how Deonarine copes when he is promoted to a higher level.

As has become traditional at this level, the spinners - and there have been a host of them - have enjoyed themselves.

There may be a new Lance Gibbs or Sonny Ramadhin among them but it is so difficult to judge when batsmen of all ages in the West Indies these days are mesmerised by flight and spin.

It is, as always, fast bowlers that the knowing fans under the trees at Queen's Park or North Stars were looking for and they were disappointed.

The fastest, and most successful, was the Jamaican Germaine Lawson, but there was a lot of informed muttering about his action.

It was not baseless, for there is a kink in the elbow but it is nothing that cannot be readily corrected.

Throwing is one of cricket's most emotional subjects and, before young Lawson gets embroiled in it, his coaches need to work with him.

Henry Olonga, the young Zimbabwean, had the problem and was called in his debut Test. In no time, the coaches straightened him out without any loss of pace and he has remained a regular member of the attack.

There is no reason why the pacy and promising Lawson cannot be similarly fixed.

There is a lot more for the coaches to work on, in every team.

Nothing was more disheartening than the performances of the Leewards and Windwards which have become such a nursery for the Test team since they were belatedly brought into the mainstream of West Indies cricket.

It may be an abberation but I think not. The Leewards, especially, have an imposing pool of great players who now have urgent work before them.

The Windwards are not so greatly blessed but the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has set about addressing the problem.

Generally, in the cricket I saw, basics such as running between the wickets, fielding and simply reading the game were still lacking.

These are the areas that make Australia and South Africa so strong and help New Zealand make a 'silk purse out of a sow's ear'.

And, surely, young batsmen should be taught that there are better ways to play spin than either slogging or blocking.