THERE is no more serious countenance in international sport than Steve Waugh's. A smile is as rare as a loose spell from Glenn McGrath.
Yet a knowing grin came to his face at Kensington Oval yesterday morning when Brian Lara handed him the names of the eleven he and his fellow West Indies selectors had chosen to put in the field in the third Test.
He could hardly hold back a disbelieving chuckle when Lara won the toss and promptly told him he could have first use of an inviting, grassless pitch against a bowling staff manned by two debutants, one aged 21, one 20, and two others with nine Tests between them, one a fast bowler just recovered from a bout of debilitating illness.
He would have required all the self-control that has brought him over 10,000 runs and kept him going for a record 159 Tests to restrain himself from rolling around on the dressing room floor and gaffawing uncontrollably as his uncompromising, battle-hardened batsmen capitalised on their good fortune.
The hundreds of Australian supporters in the packed stands were less reserved. They had a rollocking time as they did in lesser numbers at Bourda and Queen's Park and as they can do wherever their formidable team plays nowadays.
Ricky Ponting duly helped himself to his third three figure innings in the series, and his 17th overall, reaching 113 before the energetic Tino Best's pinpoint return beat his attempt to steal a second run to third man as the shadows lengthened across the verdant outfield.
In the six hours before that misjudgement, the West Indies had managed only two successes.
After 50 minutes, the big left-handed opener Matthew Hayden, as dangerous a batsman as there is in the contemporary game, slashed at Vasbert Drakes' sixth ball and sliced a catch to first slip that Chris Gayle clutched to his chest.
The second break came 35 minutes into the second session, after Hayden's left-handed partner, Justin Langer, and Ponting had added 108.
Langer, who had been in for 109 balls for his 78, hoisted Omari Banks, the tall, 20-year-old off-spinner - like the lively and exuberant Best in his first Test - into the Three Ws Stand for six over long-on in one over.
In his next, Banks enticed him into trying a repeat. But Langer wasn't to the required pitch and the ball skewed from the leading edge to Shivnarine Chanderpaul at cover.
It was a moment to cherish for Anguilla's first Test cricketer but the West Indies would not have further joy until Best's late intervention with his fast, flat, round-arm throw that landed in Carlton Baugh's waiting gloves inches above the stumps.
The TV replay that third umpire Eddie Nicholls needed to consult showed Best had no more than a foot to spare.
By then, Ponting's stand with another left-hander, the unorthodox, inventive Darren Lehmann had raised 141 and Australia, at 292 for three, were already in a virtually impregnable position.
Ponting's dismissal brought a little late relief to the West Indies but Lehmann resumes this morning 89, to follow his 160 and 66 not out in the previous Test, with Waugh and the intimidating Adam Gilchrist to follow.
Four more tough days lie ahead as the West Indies fight to prevent Australia carrying their lead in the series to 3-0 and closer to the historic clean sweep they are seeking.
It was impossible to find a logical explanation for Lara's decision to bowl.
His team's batting is by far its stronger suit. It has come off totals of 398 in the second innings of the first Test and 408 in the first of the second, Lara himself and Daren Ganga have each had a couple of hundreds and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, scorer of Test cricket's third fastest hundred at Bourda, was back.
Even with the return of Glenn McGrath, there was nothing to fear from the Australian bowling - as there was from batting that has previously in the series amassed totals of 489, 576 for four declared and 238 for three declared.
Had Lara consulted his good friend Courtney Browne, he would have known that Jamaica sent in Barbados in the Carib Beer Series final on the same pitch a month ago and conceded a first innings total of 369.
The West Indies just had to bat. Instead, the three fledgling bowlers - Best, Banks and Jermaine Lawson, 21, in his sixth Test and just over chicken pox, and the stalwart Drakes, himself only in his fifth Test - were given an impossible mission.
In the circumstances, they did as well as could be expected.
Lawson bowled with lively pace, Banks, delivering from a high, easy action, was unperturbed by a nervous opening over off which Ponting took 10 and bowled with good control and Chris Gayle did a sterling containing job with 20 overs of steady off-spin.
The experienced Drakes once more had to intervene after a threatening start by Langer and Hayden, sending down nine overs for 31 runs before lunch. But, puzzlingly, he was not called on again until 53 overs later.
Only Best could feel he had a genuinely disappointing day. Bursting with energy and enthusiasm, he paid the price for too much short bowling that allowed the Australians to indulge their penchant for cross-batted strokes on a slow surface.
Indeed, the run rate of 3.5 an over was Australia's slowest of the series and the situation would not have been so grim but for three missed catches and two botched run outs.
Langer edged the first ball of the match from Lawson low to third slip's right but Ramnaresh Sarwan couldn't hold the chance inches from the turf.
Three overs later, at four, he pushed back a straightforward return to Lawson that the big fast bowler juggled and let slip to ground.
Ponting was 35 and stranded on confused calling for a single with Langer but Devon Smith missed the opportunity by fumbling and then returning to the bowlers', rather than the keeper's, end.
Twenty runs later, Lawson's throw from long-leg appeared to have found Langer, at 67, short of his ground before Nicholls spotted that wicket-keeper Carlton Baugh dropped the ball before the stumps were broken.
Finally, Ponting, at 88 with the total 236, sliced his cut off Best to backward point where Chanderpaul let the two-handed catch slip through his two hands.
It would have been some compensation for Best's punishment that included Ponting's hooked six into the Kensington Stand.
It was that kind of day for the West Indies. It started even before a ball was bowled.