The strangest test debutant of all

What with the World Cup, Nat West Series and Wimbledon, we've only paid a cursory interest in the West Indies versus South Africa test series, which finished earlier this week with a two-nil victory for Graeme Smith's men.

From the little we did see and from the reports we've read, it doesn't seem we missed much other than some pretty attritional cricket on poor wickets from two dour sides. South Africa continued to exert their usual overpowering dominance on a West Indies side that seems to be spiralling even further into mediocrity and despair.

As such we initially missed that fast bowler Brandon Bess made his debut for West Indies in the final test at Bridgetown. Had the West Indies discovered another brilliant quick off a production line that stretches back to Hall and Griffith, rose to its zenith in the halcyon days of Marshall, Holding, Garner, Roberts et al through to Walsh and Ambrose, and now to the good but not great Roach and Edwards?

We went to the Cricinfo player profile to find out.

We were surprised to say the least to see that in 19 First Class games, Bess had only taken 31 wickets at an exorbitant average of 50.19. Has a bowler ever made his test debut with a higher first class average? It would be like giving Chris Martin or Monty Panesar a role as an opening batsman. We see that Bess was called up as a last minute replacement after Nelon Pascal was injured. Presumably, there was no-one better in the crowd, which seems surprising.

Unsurprisingly then things didn't go well. In his debut test, Bess took one wicket (nightwatchman Paul Harris) for 92 in thirteen very expensive overs. Given the slow scoring rate throughout the match this is outlandishly bad. West Indies cricket may be in a dire state, but we confidently predict that Bess will join the ranks of the one cap test wonders.