West Indies batsman Carlton Baugh prepare to swing on the last day of a four-day tour match against South Africa's Free State in Bloemfontein yesterday.
As the West Indies selectors hunt for new, young batsmen and turn to one with a first-class average of 22 as their newest, Carlton Baugh served a reminder yesterday that they have one in South Africa already as capable as any.
The diminutive, 21-year- old Jamaican's unbeaten 153 on the final day of the match against Free State might have been against bowling and in circumstances that did not merit its first-class classification.
All the same, it was an exhibition of dazzling and devastating stroke-play that confirmed Baugh's potential to eventually match the batting and keeping excellence of Jeffrey Dujon, his predecessor at Wolmer's College in Kingston.
He simply and mercilessly demolished the junk that was served up, lashing five sixes and 18 fours from 154 balls with crisp, clean hitting.
Daren Ganga, unable to match such savagery, tagged along in his wake, accumulating his own hundred at the more leisurely rate of 210 balls with a six and 12 fours and sharing a partnership of 249.
Brian Lara closed the innings as Ganga reached his landmark and a match with little purpose, except for setting personal records, drifted to its inevitable draw with Free State 97 for two.
It was Baugh's batting that leap-frogged him over tried old-timers like Courtney Browne and Junior Murray and the `A' team incumbent, fellow Jamaican Keith Hibbert, as stand-in for the injured Ridley Jacobs in two Tests against Australia last season.
His maiden first-class hundred, an even, unbeaten 100, had been for West Indies `B' against the eventual champions, Barbados at Kensington Oval.
He followed that with a swashbuckling 115, in a stand of 222 with Narsingh Deonarine, for the Carib Beer Eleven against the Australians in their opening tour match.
Clearly, here was a young man to whom reputations meant nothing and, if he did little in his two Tests, he still ended the season with an average of 40.88.
He was a physical bantamweight but he packed a heavyweight's punch and fit the pugnacious profile of the new generation of West Indian players chief selector Sir Viv Richards and captain Brian Lara announced they were looking for.
He was given the chance to bat No.5 yesterday and had virtually the whole day to himself after Ramnaresh Sarwan's chance of one long, last innings prior to Friday's first Test was cut short after six balls, given out to a catch at the wicket off one from the lively Dillon duPreez he didn't hit.
As the distraught Sarwan slowly wandered back to the team room, Baugh hustled past him, eager to help himself to some of the bowling delicacies on which Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ridley Jacobs gorged themselves over the first two days.
His form, and mood, were quickly obvious from a sensational shot off the 12th ball he faced, a drive over extra-cover from the fast-medium Ryan McLaren that landed on the grass bank nearly 100 yards away for the first of his five sixes.
The other four were all in the general direction of mid-wicket, all from off-spinners Kosie Ventner and Thandi Thabalala and all very long.
One ended out of the confines of Goodyear Park entirely and they didn't even bother to search for it, simply replacing it with another.
By the time he was 38, he had already made up on the 12-run head start Ganga had given him. After that, Free State captain Gerry Leibenberg didn't call on his three main, faster bowlers so that Baugh's last 120 runs were strictly off the slow stuff, much of it no more than club standard.
The three successive deliveries he slapped for boundaries in the only over sent down by Reyno Arendse, the opening batsman, were, slow, wide long-hops that would have been derided in an over-50s match.
Not that it bothered Baugh who just kept pummelling the boundaries until, perhaps tiring, he slowed to take 62 balls over his last 58 runs, having arrived at his 100 off 92.
His solitary chance came at 81, a return hit so hard at Ventner that it rebounded from his hand for a couple of runs past mid-on. Fortunately, it wasn't broken.