Twenty year old Ramnaresh Sarwan woke with a start in the middle of the night last night and couldn't go back to sleep until three thirty in the morning.

He was up thinking about his game and how he might play today so he could still have a spot in the West Indian team after this Australian series is over.

Having made just three runs and three ducks (including one in the first innings of this match) in his five Test innings of the summer so far, it is not hard to imagine that Sarwan had something to think about.

His team had failed to win any first-class matches on tour, relinquished the world record for consecutive Test victories and were staring at another defeat here in Sydney. Personally, Sarwan, who averaged forty in three Tests in the Windies' dismal tour of England, was at a particularly low ebb in his brief international career.

Heralded as the future of Caribbean cricket upon scoring an unbeaten eighty-four on debut against Pakistan, he had now been dropped from the team after his first two Tests on Australian soil yielded just three runs. His inclusion here was only due to the injury of opener Daren Ganga and the young right-hander had scored another duck in the first innings on the first day - his fifth of the tour.

In dire need of inspiration, Sarwan went to his coach Roger Harper, who reminded his charge of another time in his career where he had come through similar troubles, albeit on a much smaller scale. It was during an 'A' team competition against India in 1999, and the then nineteen year old had lost confidence in the game.

As in so many other cases with batsmen, the loss of confidence brought loss of form. So Sarwan went out there onto the ground in his native Bourda and tried to play himself into form. All he had to do was be patient and play defensively until a bad ball came his way. With this firmly in mind, he scored eighty-nine runs.

Today at eleven thirty, it was Sarwan's turn to try and do it again. Jason Gillespie had just ripped through vice-captain Sherwin Campbell and then Marlon Samuels with consecutive balls and the bunny of the tour was walking out to face the hat-trick ball. He pushed forward in defence and the speedster was denied. The next ball Sarwan sent to the fence for the first of six boundaries with a superb cover drive. It seemed his confidence was on its way back.

"Actually I wasn't trying to go on the attack," he said.

"I prepared to be more defensive and the ball was turning as well … I wasn't as confident and free as I wanted to be but it's all up here. It's a very mental game and you must be mentally tough to play it and I thought I really helped myself today by being very mentally tough and strong."

And it showed. When Sarwan was finally dismissed by Glenn McGrath after almost two-and-a-half hours, he had fifty-one runs next to his name in what was his best innings of the tour. Hell, it was the first time he was actually out there for more than ten minutes. He played with growing confidence and drove gloriously. He was careful in waiting for deliveries that could be put away and watchful enough to strike Stuart MacGill for four boundaries off a pitch he says has started to turn "more than just a bit".

So what has been the problem before today? Despite starting the Test series with a pair which included a ridiculous run out, Sarwan says it was not until the end of the Second Test in Perth that he was going downhill. He scored two and one there and felt that, although he was hitting them alright in the nets, he just could not convert it to the pitch.

Unfortunately, injury kept him out of the first-class run-fest of a match between the Second and Third Tests and suddenly he had no time to play himself back into form. Despite there being only two warm up matches before the beginning of the Test series, Sarwan says it is missing that match in Hobart that really cost him.

"There were not too many first-class games and that was a bit frustrating because when you go out of form like I did - I just went out of form for a period of time - and there wasn't too many games to play to help you get back your confidence."

There have been suggestions that the twenty year old lost form and confidence because the coaching staff at the Adelaide Cricket Academy tried to tinker with his technique during his brief stint there as an overseas guest prior to the start of this tour. However, Sarwan insists his time at the Academy was nothing short of invaluable and that he had tried to change a few things himself before arriving in Australia. Little things like preparing to play more off the back foot in anticipation of the bounce here.

Sarwan also puts paid to the notion that the Australian cricket team contains the worst sledgers in cricket.

"I don't think there was any sledging."

"You're allowed to say whatever you wish on the cricket field."

"They're very aggressive and they're very tough competitors and they do not give up that easy and once our team can get like that I think we'll be well on our way to where we were twenty years ago," he says.

And as for rumours in the media that the small West Indian himself is a bad sledger, Sarwan seems well and truly baffled.

"I don't know where that came from. I do say things but I do not say it directly at players."

"I'm sure no one takes it personally. You get off the field and you meet each other and have fun," he says.

And what of his overall experience in this, the toughest of places to tour in cricket?

"Excellent. It has been excellent. Although I haven't scored a lot of runs but looking at Steve, Mark and the rest of the guys, I've really learnt a lot from them. Especially Steve, he has a lot of determination and discipline and hopefully I can take some of his determination and discipline and put it into my cricket."

© 2000 CricInfo Ltd