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For one reason or another, and with proper justification, Courtney Walsh has been a shining light in the gloom that has continued to envelop West Indies cricket this past year.

The game's oldest Test player will again be the centre of emotional attention over the next few days at Sabina Park, in his native Kingston, as he comes to the end of the longest and most celebrated career of any West Indian cricketer.

And Walsh expressed one wish yesterday.

It would be nice to have a Test match win here in Jamaica for the final Test match, he said. I'm hoping for that and I am still very optimistic.

Optimistic rather than realistic, given the West Indies have now gone 13 Tests without winning one.

Walsh's first Test was marked by an innings victory for the West Indies over Australia at the WACA in Perth in 1984. It would be a fitting finale should his last produce a similar result.

Back then, he joined statistically and actually the strongest West Indies team of all. Success came as a matter of course.

He leaves arguably the weakest of West Indies team but, as he noted yesterday, it remains in the rebuilding process.

When Walsh, 38, walks from the ground for the last time in the fifth and final Test, he will wave a poignant farewell to the assembled thousands and take his leave after more Tests than any other West Indian, and any other fast bowler (132).

He would have added to his incredible tally of 513 wickets, having already extended the record for most Test wickets he broke with his 435th against Zimbabwe to emotional scenes at Sabina just over a year ago.

Such occasions have become commonplace for Walsh since. There were heartfelt farewells from English and Australian crowds and players at the Oval and the Sydney Cricket Ground as he made his way off those ground for the last time.

A month ago, he crowned the 50th Test match at the Queen's Park Oval with his 500th Test wicket, a cricketing Everest. In Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados he has been decorated with high national honours.

And now Sabina comes around again.

Walsh has given retiring thought more than once before. This time, he knows within himself that it is time to go, that, if his bowling remains the highest quality, his fielding is not.

Basically, I was looking for this to be my last Test match and nothing has happened to change that at this point in time.

All Courtney Walsh wants is a victory to see him out. Is that too much to ask?

© The Barbados Nation