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The opposition, in the words of coach Roger Harper, was not as competitive as we had hoped, but the West Indies enjoyed a satisfying day in the sun here yesterday all the same.

Fulfilling their request for a much-needed practice match, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) assembled a combination under the name of Zimbabwe A, a mixture of the old and the new, five of them young, promising black players who are the game's future here.

It proved a no-contest, the West Indies compiling 277 for six from their 50 overs, with captain Carl Hooper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul allowing the apprentices to make the most of the favourable conditions.

They then reduced the composite team to 69 for seven before relaxing so that the total reached 124 when the innings ended in the 30th over.

The purpose of the exercise was to give those who needed it a chance in the middle and to sharpen up on some of the basics. Judging by the obvious high spiritedness on the field what Harper referred to as relaxed but focused it did morale good, following on Saturday's victory over Zimbabwe in the first match of the Coca-Cola Series.

The humiliating loss to the Country Districts exactly a week earlier seemed a distant memory.

In his first innings of the tour, Ramnaresh Sarwan made 94 from 103 balls before he was run out by a direct hit by Paul Strang in the last over.

A touch and placement player, he had 40 singles and five fours in his 94.

His nimble footwork and wristy strokeplay were in good order but there seems no place for him in the middle order for the One-Day game.

Like Sarwan, Corey Collymore had not previously played and he would have been content with his eight overs and his two wickets, one to an edge to second slip, the other that ripped out opener Henry Makadza's off-stump.

There were other pleasing aspects, notably the running between the wickets and the absence of a single no-ball, carrying on from Saturday's victory over Zimbabwe when there were four in 50 overs.

The 277 was raised more by the 100 singles than the two sixes and 18 fours.

It's something among many things we're working on, Harper said. You'll find that there were times in Australia (in the triangular Carlton Series earlier this year) when Australia would beat us by a big margin and yet we would end up hitting more boundaries than them.

© The Barbados Nation