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It should be the high point of the season, a centre-spread, full-colour ad for West Indies cricket.

Unquestionably, our two best teams are contesting the current Busta International Series final at Sabina Park.

Jamaica, defending the championship they won last season, reeled off seven successive victories to get there, an unparalleled record. Guyana are led by the West Indies captain Carl Hooper.

There are 12 Test players and two others with One-Day International experience involved. Eight were engaged in the recent training camp in preparation for the forthcoming series against India. Five are likely to be in the West Indies 11 in the first Test next Thursday.

Even at a time when the regional game is in a deep trough, we might have expected a certain degree of quality on our television screens.

Instead, what we witnessed over the first three days simply accentuated the angst we have felt following the travails of the West Indies team these past few years. It took Hooper's masterful hundred yesterday to inject much needed class to the proceedings but the contrast with everything else was stark and instructive.

On the opening morning, after Hooper won the toss and gave them the benefit of bowling first, Reon King and Colin Stuart, both fast bowlers of recent Test status, sent down more no-balls than good balls, as much off the line marked in white as the directional line they needed to bother the batsmen.

It was soon apparent why neither figured in the selection for the Indian series but it was little better when two younger and more recent contenders, Darren Powell and Jermaine Lawson, had a go for Jamaica.

As the need for worthy fast bowlers of the future is urgent, so too is that for wicketkeepers to take over from the aging Ridley Jacobs.

The two youngsters on show at Sabina, Azib Ali Haniff, the little Guyanese, and Keith Hibbert, the Jamaican, did not induce optimism.

Between Haniff's byes and the bowlers' over-stepping, extras were already Jamaica's topscore by lunch on the first day and they remained that way throughout.

It didn't take Hibbert long to make his first mistake, spilling a catch early in Guyana's reply. Another followed yesterday morning.

Errors were not confined to those with gloves.

The Guyanese missed three catches that allowed Jamaica to build a solid start. The Jamaicans returned the compliment with Hibbert's miss and a couple of early slip chances that reprieved Guyana's openers.

Teams of limited ability and experience, such as the West Indies at present, can ill afford to be further hindered by the indiscipline of no-balls and faulty fielding. The first couple of days of the Busta final were further cause for concern less than a week before a tough Test series.

The Indians have certainly been favoured by a strangely accommodating itinerary that allows them to start with the first two Tests in territories where, as WICB president Wes Hall told them on their arrival last week, they will be greeted with approbation.

Guyana and Trinidad, with their large East Indian populations, have always been a home away from home for Indian and Pakistani teams touring the West Indies.

In Guyana and Trinidad, Sourav Ganguly and his men will be royally entertained. They can worship in Hindu temples and Muslim mosques, dine on dishes with which their taste buds are familiar and listen to the latest Indian music on more than one radio station.

It is no accident that India's only two victories in 33 previous Tests in the Caribbean were at Queen's Park and that none of their 14 defeats has been at Bourda.

So, by the time they reach Barbados, where the conditions and the culture are more alien and where they have lost six of their seven Tests, they should be well settled, perhaps even ahead.

West Indians or is it West Indian cricket administrators really are a hospitable people.

© The Barbados Nation