Six players, four of them Barbadian, were yesterday given a chance to restore their interrupted Test careers by their inclusion in the West Indies ``A'' team for a shared tour of India in November and December.
The two most experienced have been appointed to the leadership. Ian Bishop, the Trinidad and Tobago fast bowler and veteran of 43 Tests, has been made captain and Sherwin Campbell, the Barbados opener controversially omitted from the simultaneous Test tour of South Africa after 30 Tests, his deputy.
Campbell's fellow Barbadians Courtney Browne, Adrian Griffith and Floyd Reifer and Windward Islands' leg-spinner Rawl Lewis are the others with less extended spells in the Test team who can restore the selectors' confidence with solid performances, even on a tour limited to two four-day and three one-day representative matches.
According to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), negotiations are continuing on an invitation from the Bangladesh Board for a short tour preceding India.
Five players, batsman Keith Semple and Richard Smith, all-rounder Carl Tuckett and left-arm spinner Neil McGarrell and the young Dominican wicket-keeper Wayne Phillip, are given their first major tours.
Semple, 28, has been around for nine seasons in regional first-class cricket, and Smith, 27, for eight, reflecting the present dearth of young batting talent.
Four others, the batsmen Wavel Hinds and teenager Ramnaresh Sarwan, and fast bowlers Pedro Collins and Reon King, are retained from last year's 'A' team tour of South Africa.
Given the several younger available fast bowlers, Bishop's selection is as much for his experience and guidance as an opportunity as for hope for a revival.
The left-hander Reifer is on his third successive 'A' team tour.
He has also had two inconclusive Tests against Sri Lanka and he probably knows he is now in the Last Chance Saloon.
Griffith, the other Barbadian left-hander, and Lewis have had the frustration of a solitary Test and should equally realise the only way back is through runs and wickets at every opportunity.
Browne's case accurately epitomises the problems the West Indies have had with their wicket-keepers since the exit of the long-serving Jeffrey Dujon in 1991.
He is one of five unsatisfactorily shuffled around at international level since and now returns to the fold in spite of the fact that he does not presently hold the position for Barbados.
The one who does, Ricky Hoyte, was the specialist with the 'A' team to South Africa last year but the presence of Phillip, aged 20 and without a first-class match to his name, indicates that he is the one now earmarked for eventual promotion.
Seen so far only at youth tournament level, he has impressed such knowledgeable judges as Jeff Dujon and Michael Findlay, both high-class keepers in their time. If he is as good as they say he is, his leap into the Test team is unlikely to be long delayed.
In deference to conditions in India, Bishop has only two fast bowlers along with him, the left-arm Collins and the pacy King, although Tuckett trundles nippy medium-pace.