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After four days and several time zones the West Indies cricket team have arrived in New Zealand hopeful their young side can start playing to its potential.
The West Indies have slipped to eighth in the world rankings in both the one-day and test versions of the game in recent years but still believe they have the talent to rise again.
"It's been a tough time for us but this is a new tour for us," captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul said.
"We've got to put what has passed behind us and keep looking forward. We have a bunch of young fellows here and they're all excited and hopefully they can live up to their true potential and go out there and play some good cricket,"
"It's a big blow to be down there (just above Zimbabwe) but I know that we are a much better team than that and hopefully we can show it on this tour."
That may be easier said than done with the players having less than a week to come to terms with the New Zealand conditions before the Twenty20 match, which the West Indies have never played, kicks off the tour on Thursday.
"We travelled through two time zones to get here and a week before our first game is right on the cusp of being long enough," coach Bennett King said of the preparation time.
"We'd probably like to be here two weeks before but if we're here two weeks before we've got to pay for that two weeks too."
The West Indies haven't played international one day cricket for six months but are coming off their own domestic one-day competition, which was played to the new international rules with super subs and power plays.
"The players have been playing a lot of cricket and that's the good thing coming into the series," Bennett explained. "They've been hitting lots of balls, players we've picked have been getting runs and taking lots of wickets and bowling overs so from that perspective we're not in bad shape I think."
The experience and talent of Brian Lara will not arrive in New Zealand until the test series as the West Indian batting great is carefully managed to have him available for the World Cup in the Caribbean next year.
"At 36-years of age we've got to make sure he plays as much cricket as he can and especially with the World Cup coming up we've just got to make sure we man manage him," Bennett said.
The lack of experience in the side is something that the coach is looking to develop, particularly in the test arena, but he realises that it is not something that will come overnight.
"It's not just a quick fix for this group in particular. I truly believe that the basis of the group is very sound and very solid but learning time to play test cricket and five-day cricket with the amount of experience we've got in the side is something that's going to take time and we'll find out very soon if they've learnt anything from the Australian series," King said.
"One of the things that we need to do is make sure that our consistency is strong and we know that a lot of our players can perform well and they have at various times on the world stage and one of the keys to this West Indian side at the moment is making them do that time and time again, making sure that their bad days are as close to their good days."
The West Indies have one Twenty20 match, five one-dayers and three tests to show they can again be a team to be feared.
The West Indies' last test series win away from home, over a major nation, was in New Zealand in 1995 but the Black Caps have won three and drawn one of the last four tests between the two nations.
West Indies ODI squad: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (captain), Ramnaresh Sarwan (vice-captain), Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga, Runako Morton, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Denesh Ramdin, Jerome Taylor, Ian Bradshaw, Rawl Lewis, Fidel Edwards, Deighton Butler and Wavell Hinds.
West Indies test squad: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (captain), Ramnaresh Sarwan (vice-captain), Chris Gayle, Brian Lara, Daren Ganga, Runako Morton, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Denesh Ramdin, Jerome Taylor, Ian Bradshaw, Rawl Lewis, Fidel Edwards, Daren Powell, Devon Smith.
