Vitel Lawes wasn't just on ODI debut, or his West Indies debut; he had never played a professional match before. And it showed at the start of his first over, with a series of drag-downs. Short, then shorter, first outside off, then down leg.
The final ball of the over was short too, but some long-hops can be deadly, and Henry Nicholls swatted his pull straight to midwicket. The 19-year-old Lawes had taken his first wicket in a grown-up's world.
"I was very nervous coming into the game," Lawes said to the broadcasters after New Zealand's innings. "Getting that first wicket helped settle all the nerves."
They certainly did. Lawes finished with 3 for 54, and was instrumental through the middle overs in keeping New Zealand down to 267.
Vuvuzelas rang out around the ground but the stands at the Providence Stadium were mostly empty. You wondered if West Indies head coach Darren Sammy had been sneaky in handing Lawes his debut here, in this first ODI of a five-match series, to get the initiation out of the way with relatively few eyes on him.
Lawes is the kind of youngster who can make you feel old: he was just four when he saw Adam Zampa bowl and became inspired to become a wristspinner himself. He went on to learn his trade at St Catherine Cricket Club - an academy that has produced internationals like Andre Russell and Rovman Powell. Unlike those power-hitters, Lawes has broken into the West Indies side with a rarer skillset, left-arm wristspin.
At the start of this year, Lawes took ten wickets at 22.70 during the Under-19 World Cup. He typically bowls in the mid-80s (kph), and he spun the ball off the worn pitches in Zimbabwe like he could see cracks that had not yet formed on the surface. Before this series, he spent time working with Nikita Miller, the former West Indies left-arm orthodox bowler, who was tellingly shuttled into the support staff.
"As Nikita Miller told me, it is about controlling your emotions," Lawes said before the game. "When you experience something as exciting as this, it is important to enjoy it, but always believe that every day is a new day and there will be a new challenge."
In his fourth over, Lawes showed how much of a challenge he can be, and will be in the years to come, to accomplished international batters.
He had just bowled a wrong'un that Mark Chapman had pushed into the covers. Now he prepared to run in again, leaning forward at the top of his mark, one foot in front of the other. He sliced through the crease, delivering from over the wicket to the left-hander, and from close to the stumps.
From that angle, he dangled the ball in towards a leg-stumpish line. The flight drew Chapman forward. Then the ball ripped off the pitch, beating the outside edge of Chapman's tentative poke while dragging him further out of his crease. Before Chapman had processed what had happened, Shai Hope had whipped off the bails.
On the broadcast, Ian Bishop remarked: "We've been asking for a slow bowler who can turn it both ways, since the peak of [Sunil] Narine."
Through the course of his 10 overs, it was clear Lawes was a work in progress. But it was also clear he could turn it both ways. And turn it big, considerably bigger on this track than either Khary Pierre or Gudakesh Motie, the senior spinners in West Indies' XI.
The turn and the wristspinner's bounce combined nicely to bring Lawes his third wicket, in his final over. He had just beaten Michael Bracewell's outside edge with big, ripping turn, and the left-hand batter responded by trying to go with the direction of the stock ball, bringing out the reverse sweep. But he hadn't contended with the dip and bounce, and all he managed was an edge that looped to short third.
When Lawes finished the over, Sammy delivered a standing ovation from the dressing room. The diminutive Lawes almost disappeared as his team-mates swarmed him with fist-bumps and pats on the back before he walked back to his fielding position in the deep.
West Indies would go on to win by seven wickets, and when asked about his spell later, Lawes replied succinctly. "We had to get the wickets, and we got them."
In years to come, Lawes will likely keep getting them.