Invest in youth, Waugh urges desolate Windies

The tourists lost the opening two Tests in Brisbane and Perth inside three days and last week’s third Adelaide Test by five wickets early on the fifth day.

While the old guard, Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams and Sherwin Campbell lamely succumbed, it was 19-year-old Marlon Samuels, playing without the scars of continual Test failure, who showed the way for the future with his refreshing 46.

That followed his unbeaten 60 in the first innings in only his second Test since being summoned from Jamaica as an injury replacement for Shivnarine Chanderpaul early this month.

The long-awaited revival of West Indies cricket – 4-0 down here coming on top of their first series defeat against England in 31 years – looks some way off, yet Waugh, the Australian skipper, offered his vanquished opponents hope.

“They are going through a tough time like we did in 1985, they’ve just got to stick with a couple of young guys who they think are going to be their future, the same way as Australia did then with myself, Dean Jones and Ian Healy,” said Waugh, man-of-the-match for his unbeaten 121 in the first innings.

“They have to select a few guys, invest in them, and see them through the tough times.”

Waugh may be seen as the hard-bitten cricket pragmatist, but he offered some words of comfort to his under-fire opposing captain Jimmy Adams.

“I would tell him to have a serious drink tonight … I generally feel sorry for Jimmy because he’s a real nice guy and a good cricketer, but I’m fortunate that I’ve got an excellent side to captain.

“At this time it’s not happening for Jimmy, his batting’s showing the signs of stress and what is going on, he’s not thinking clearly with his shot selection and that happened today, but he’ll come back from that.”

But time is not what Adams and his deflated band have. They must back up in a few days against the remorseless Australians champing at making it an unprecedented series clean sweep in Sydney.

“It’s not going to be easy, but it’s something we have to face and we have to try to deal with it,” said Adams.

“I go back to the Test (against England) in Manchester earlier this year where we were starting to see better signs and you are thinking let’s build on this and when it doesn’t happen it does leave a sinking feeling.

“It’s the question we’ve been asking for the last five years: why as a team are we so inconsistent away from home… I don’t have the answer.”

Jason Gillespie, relishing taking the new ball with Glenn McGrath, took the first six wickets and was thinking of all ten before he finished with 6-40 off 17 overs.