Close your eyes, if you will, and imagine the scenes at Bert Sutcliffe Oval in Lincoln on Wednesday when a New Zealand XI meets what can only loosely be described as a 'West Indies XI'.
The three-dayer will not have first-class status because Aaron Redmond and Jeet Raval will beopening the batting for the 'visitors'. West Indies test openers Chris Gayle and Kieran Powell were scheduled to finish a one-day series in India - such is the 'planning' of the future tours programme. Another opener will also have to be manufactured for at least the first test as Gayle recovers from a hamstring injury.
The New Zealand Cricket staff member who assumes the organising mantle will no doubt get Redmond and Raval together for a rousing pre-match chat.
NZC staff: "Now Aaron, we want you to impersonate Gayle, mon, presuming he recovers for the second test. You're both 34, born two days apart, so do your darnedest, you know, sunglasses indoors, uber-cool Jamaican swagger, sixes off the first ball of the match, that sort of shenanigans. Get a few and we might offer you a test spot.
"Jeet, today you're Kieran Powell. You're both left-handers, I know he's got three test centuries in 17 matches but get jiggy with it and give it a nudge."
As a further potential dampener on the tour, the International Cricket Council has requested Shane Shillingford, the 30-year-old offspinner with 59 wickets at 31.27 from 12 tests, do remedial work on his action within the next fortnight. He needs to submit the results of the bowling tests two weeks after that.
He should still bowl in the opening test while he's on cricket's equivalent of bail, but, if Youtube footage is a gauge, then the idea of him chucking makes the legal Muttiah Muralitharan a baseball pitcher.
To put Shillingford's influence in context, he took 11 wickets in the recent two-test series against India. None of his team-mates managed more than two.
Further lowering the Lincoln match's status is news Jesse Ryder will recover from injury niggles rather than getting batting practice against an international attack. He's been replaced by wicketkeeper-batsman Derek de Boorder.
