There are destinations on the cricket circuit visited so often that changes become imperceptible. Like the members of your immediate family, you see places such as Cape Town, Sydney, Barbados - jealous yet? - so frequently that you cannot make out the differences over time; the memories of each tour merge into one and one's self-image is never-changing.

Occasionally, though, we return somewhere that we have not been to for an age and so the contrast, in oneself and the surrounds, is inescapable and a period of deep introspection inevitable. Where did all the years go?

St Kitts is one such place. It is 15 years since I previously came to these shores, when I was - as Andrew Strauss is now - on my first tour as England captain.

St Kitts was a sugar island then, rather than the tourist destination it is now. The cane fields have largely disappeared and where there was scrub before, a huge, garish Marriott hotel stands, serving waffles and fry-ups. But with this “progress” has come violence and now St Kitts and Nevis has one of the highest murder rates in the world: 23 last year alone out of a population of only 46,000. There is a sullen, anxious edginess that I do not remember previously.

To combat it, and terrified by the kind of bad publicity that accompanied the British couple murdered in Antigua last summer, the Government has reintroduced the death penalty. In December a hanging took place at the prison opposite the cricket ground: “Old hanging ground/ still playing field”, as Martin Carter, the great West Indian poet, wrote of a different place. Simeon Govia, a massage therapist by day, was the hangman and he was paid £1,800 for his services, a tidy sum. He had never done it before but said that it seemed to go all right.

If St Kitts has lost a little of its soul, the same has been said of West Indian cricket, even though to talk of its decline has become a cliché. But watching three trundling medium-pacers struggling to get the ball stump high this week, never mind head high, was to yearn for what batsmen used to call a “tear-arse”; a bowler of not great quality, necessarily, but quick and who ran in with the sole intent to frighten.

Every island had a handful and it was the essence of cricket here. In our warm-up matches in 1994 we faced three such: “Hungry” Walsh, who terrorised batsmen for years in the Leicestershire leagues as well as Antigua, Randy Challenger and the bogeyman, the unforgettable John “The Dentist” Maynard. No, he was not a dentist in his spare time, but he did like knocking out batsmen's teeth.

“If you can't get them out, you gotta hurt them till they get out,” The Dentist said once, echoing the creed of a generation of West Indian quicks. “I think I've pretty much broken every part of the body so far, from the teeth to the jaw, to the nose, to the ribs, to the arms and the toes. I never worry about hurting them at the time.” Batting in the Caribbean was always a test of courage.

And the England team, how has that changed in the intervening years? What strikes me now, watching Mark Garraway, the team analyst, carefully compiling his data on opposition players in the press box, is how much more professional things have become in such a short space of time, the team's every whim and need catered for. The money is better, too.

England's backroom staff this week consists of Hugh Morris (managing director), Phil Neale (operations manager), Andy Flower (assistant coach), Ottis Gibson (bowling coach), Richard Halsall (fielding coach), Mushtaq Ahmed (spin-bowling coach), Kirk Russell (physiotherapist), Mike Stone (doctor), Sam Bradley (physiologist), Mark Saxby (massage therapist only, does not do hangings), Reg Dickason (security manager), Andrew Walpole (media manager) and Garraway. Phew.

In 1994 we had a scorer, a coach, a physiotherapist and a manager, M.J.K. Smith, the magnificently laid-back former England captain, who was to administrative efficiency what George W. Bush is to lucidity. Midway through the tour we had run out of medical supplies (I told you they had quick bowlers then) and the only solution was for me to ring a friend who happened to be coming out to watch the Tests and who was a doctor. He brought a suitcase stuffed with Voltarol, bandages and the like and was reimbursed by M.J.K. in Grenada with a cheque from Lord's. It bounced.

Grenada was a low point of a tour that plumbed a few depths (46 all out in Trinidad, if you recall). As we were sliding to defeat there, M.J.K. could be seen frantically trying to phone Graham Thorpe, who was back at the team hotel feeling a little the worse for wear. M.J.K., though, had forgotten his tour booklet and could not remember where we were staying and spent most of the afternoon phoning Grenadian hotels at random, trying to find Thorpe: “T ... H ... yes, that's right H ... O ... R ... P ... No, P, not T!” By the time he was located, the game was as good as lost.

That is another thing that has changed in the past 15 years. England teams used to come here with fear and trepidation and little expectation. But the Wisden Trophy has been in England's keep since the turn of the millennium and they do not expect to give it back now.

Caught by the vice squad

Observing Alastair Cook's elevation to FEC (Future England Captain) status this week, after his promotion to the vice-captaincy, reminded me of my appointment as Graham Gooch's deputy in 1991. I was 23, had played only 13 Tests and nine one-day internationals and the timing and manner of my appointment left me far more bewildered than Cook, who has taken things in his stride.

The occasion was a one-day international at Lord's against West Indies. The subject of the vice-captaincy had not really been a topic for discussion, but there was some confusion as to who would take over if Gooch was injured. Just as David Lawrence was about to bowl the first ball of the match, in front of a packed house, Gooch halted proceedings, wandered over from mid-off to slip, where I was fielding, and shook me by the hand.

As he turned to go he said, in that peculiar, high-pitched voice of his: “Congratulations, son, you're the new vice-captain.” And that was it; no warning, no embellishment. I spent the next 55 overs wondering if he had got the right bloke.

Andrew Symonds gets apology off pat

As the perfect example of the distorting power of alcohol, I commend to all Times readers Andrew Symonds's belting radio interview with those nice chaps Roy and HG on Triple M radio in Sydney, which can be found on triplem.com.au. It's a beauty. Given more and more rope with which to hang himself, Symonds did precisely that when it came to the topic of Brendon McCullum's debut for New South Wales in Australia's domestic Twenty20 competition.

Clearly the worse for wear, Symonds described McCullum as a “lump of s**t, sorry, a lump of cow dirt”. Sobriety the morning after brought a different perspective. In a grovelling apology, he said that his comments in “no way reflect the respect that I have for McCullum both on and off the field”.

The problem with Symonds - one seen rather frequently - is that when he is drunk he comes over as what John Thicknesse, the late correspondent of the London Evening Standard, called “only a fairly nice chap”, a euphemism for just about the biggest s**t, sorry, lump of cow dirt, that Thicknesse could imagine.