West Indian cricket is running short on heroes at present ? but in young Trinidadian allrounder Dwayne Bravo they might just have found one.

While the team endured a torrid series against England earlier this summer ? losing every match of a four Test series ? the 20-year-old was the recipient of glowing praise for his inspired performances with both bat and ball, including an impressive haul of six for 55 in the Old Trafford Test.

Bravo made his first class debut for Trinidad and Tobago only three years ago at the age of 17 and following an impressive showing with the under 19s at the last World Cup, was drafted into the West Indies A squad which toured England in 2002.

And after a prolific domestic season this year, the youngster was invited to make his full senior debut against England at Lord?s in the first Test of the English summer ? an experience he admits was a dream come true.

?It was a great feeling to make my debut at the home of cricket,? he said yesterday following the Windies? training session at the National Sports Centre.

?Every cricketer dreams of playing at Lord?s and to start my Test career there was something very special.?

Interestingly, Bravo revealed that as a teenager fighting his way up through the junior ranks, he plied his trade as a batsman and never took his bowling that seriously.

It was only very recently that he realised he had something to offer with his brisk medium pace away swingers and began to think of himself as a genuine allrounder ? a move which looks to have paid handsome dividends after collecting 16 wickets in the series against England at an average of just over 26.

?I?ve put a lot of hard work into my bowling of late,? he said.

?Moving up through club cricket and Trinidad junior teams, I played more as a batsman and never really focused on my bowling that much. But now I view myself as an allrounder ? that is what I want to be and hopefully I can make a good contribution to the team with both bat and ball.?

While other young players from the Caribbean have taken slightly longer to adapt to the rigours of Test match cricket, Bravo has taken to it like a fish to water ? making the transition with apparently little strife to the increased demands on his temperament and technique.

He conceded, however, that the gulf between Test and First Class cricket is a large one and argued that at the very top level, it is the mental side of the game that separates the wheat from the chaff.

?You have to be very strong mentally to play Test cricket,? he said.

?Ability will only get you so far and if you cannot cope with the extra pressure that Test cricket brings then you are not going to make it. There is also much less room for mistakes. Whilst in First Class game in the Caribbean you can occasionally get away with sloppy cricket, at Test level you get punished more often than not if you are not right on top of your game.?

One of the biggest problems for cricketers at the highest level is the hectic nature of the international schedule. Whilst captains and coaches the world over call for larger breaks in between series to train and adequately recuperate, the International Cricket Council continues to churn out punishing itineraries, conscious as they are of the fact that, unlike football, the vast majority of the sport?s revenues are generated in the international arena.

And even after only four months as a member of the West Indian team, for both Tests and one-day internationals, Bravo was prepared to admit that the extra demands placed on international cricketers these days takes a harsh physical and mental toll.

?It is rough,? he said.

?There is a lot of travelling involved and we are away from home for large parts of the year. Coming back after the England tour, I went home to Trinidad for about four days and then I got on a plane to come to Bermuda. So it is hectic and I am feeling a bit drained. But this is the nature of our profession these days. I?m young enough and fit enough to recover quickly and I?ll do whatever it takes to be successful.?

The slow decline of West Indian cricket over the last decade is one of the most hotly debated topics in world cricket, with some arguing that the game?s infinite fascinations have lost their grip on the minds of young West Indians and the talent pool in the Caribbean has shrunk as a result.

Bravo disputes this, however, and says that the present team is ?full? of young players with enormous talent.

But he said that it would take up to ?two to three years? before the team was a force to be reckoned with once again.

?I don?t agree with people who say there is not a lot of talent in the Caribbean,? he said.

?There definitely is plenty of ability around but it will take a little bit of time to mould it into a good team. The problem is that expectation levels are so high in the Caribbean that people want to see success immediately ? which I think is unfair. As a group, we have not been playing together all that long and most of us are still very young so it is going to take time to get our level up to where the big guns are.?

For a young man only a month shy of his 21st birthday, Bravo exudes a maturity and a quiet, level-headed confidence that has prompted some commentators, Michael Atherton included, to mark him down as a future West Indies captain.

For the moment, however, all that interests Bravo is his all round contribution to the team and in offering that, helping to drag West Indian cricket out of the doldrums.

?It made me feel really good about myself that the likes of Geoffrey Boycott and Mike Atherton had good things to say about me over in England,? he said.

?To be praised by two of the most respected figures in the game is definitely what you strive for. As far as the captaincy goes, of course I would be delighted to fulfil the role at some stage in the future but right now all I?m concentrating on is doing the best I can on the field and hopefully getting the West Indies back on track.?