Intriguing series decider ahead

THE contest starting at Kensington Oval tomorrow will reveal as much about whether Test cricket stands any chance of regaining the paramount place it once held among Barbados’ passionate public as about where New Zealand and West Indies stand in the official rankings.
For a host of reasons, there is the potential to renew interest in the traditional game that has increasingly faded against the all-action artificiality of its newest manifestation, Twenty20.
In reality, such hopes appear fanciful.
There are certainly more fans supporting Brazil in the simultaneous football World Cup than are even aware that an important Test match is at hand. Neymar and Messi are the names on their lips, not Chris Gayle, even in his 100th Test, the first of the series on his home ground of Sabina Park, or Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
CBC Television carried no live coverage of the second Test at the Queen’s Park Oval. There was nothing on the upcoming match yesterday in any local newspaper, print or electronic. 
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has effectively conceded by pricing tickets at $5 for the first two days and $10 for the weekend. You can’t now even get a reputable carwash for that.
Perhaps, just perhaps, certain circumstances will moderate such pessimism. 
That it is Kensington’s 50th Test, since its first in 1930, is itself a milestone worthy of celebrating, even though it has come about by unsatisfactory default, as a substitute for Guyana through the unseemly divisions that continue to afflict that vast land’s cricket. 
For the diehards, the fascination is enhanced by the utterly contrasting results in the first two Tests that leaves the series level with the decider over the five days at Kensington.
They will turn up in their dozens – not in their thousands as was the case when the West Indies were all-powerful – wondering whether their implausible transformation at the Queen’s Park Oval last week, following their heavy defeat at Sabina, is another turning of the corner that, like so many others, leads to a dead-end or this time the beginning of a smooth straight road ahead.
Australia and South Africa remain Test cricket’s kingpins with a clear gap to Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and England; the West Indies and New Zealand are still playing catch-up.
New Zealand started their move in a drawn series against England, and wins against the West Indies and India over the past year and a half; all were at home. They now have to prove they can do it overseas.  
The sudden West Indies’ revival from the loss by 186 runs in the first Test that made it five defeats in six matches to the triumph by ten wickets in the second, was achieved with a contribution from every player. Four from the coming generation featured. The trick is to repeat at Kensington.
Home advantage should be a favourable factor. As at Queen’s Park, there are likely to be three Bajans in the eleven, possibly four if Jason Holder is included for his Test debut. Jermaine Blackwood’s last innings on the ground was his classy 147 against Bangladesh “A” three weeks ago; four of Chanderpaul’s 29 Test hundreds are at Kensington.
 The New Zealanders are, as usual, short of genuine superstars but their whole has always been greater than the sum of their parts. The certainty is that they won’t be unduly shaken by the reversal at Queen’s Park.
It’s another factor that adds an intriguing competitive edge to this decisive final Test. It deserves more than the few spectators likely to be scattered like confetti in the stands around Kensington.
• TONY COZIER has covered West Indies Test cricket since 1965, including 26 Tests between the West Indies and New Zealand from the 1968-69 series in New Zealand. He filed for The Nation on Tests at home and overseas between 1980 and 2007 and contributes a long-running weekly column to the Sunday Sun. He returns to report throughout the third Test at Kensington.