Captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul put on a brave face on Wednesday as he confronted the task his West Indies team have of beating Australia in a cricket series here for the first time in 12 years.
The West Indies are the last touring team to have vanquished Australia on their home wickets when Richie Richardson’s tourists won the five-Test series 2-1 in 1992-1993.
Since then the once-proud Windies have won just six of their last 22 Test matches with the Australians claiming 15, including a 5-0 sweep in the last series here in 2000-2001.
A reflection of the times is that Cricket Australia no longer schedules five-Test series for the visiting West Indies, cutting the series down to a best-of-three.
But the one-time Caribbean powerhouses are stirring under the meticulous coaching of Australian Bennett King, stepping up their fitness levels and working assiduously on technique.
Not much has been expected from Chanderpaul’s team in the coming series, yet there were encouraging signs in their only four-day warm-up match against Queensland. They scored 612 and left the home side squirming to get out with a draw.
Chanderpaul knows the challenge that awaits but he points to their last meeting when the West Indies created history with the highest winning chase scoring 418 for seven to win the fourth Antigua Test in May 2003.
”We all know that Australia have a strong team that have been playing very good cricket over the years, number one up to now, but the way I see it is that we have a good team also,” Chanderpaul said on Wednesday on the eve of the first Gabba Test.
”We’ve beaten Australia in the Caribbean chasing a huge total and I know we can win out here if we go out and play better cricket than Australia.”
For that to happen much depends on out-of-form Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chanderpaul to score runs and their new battery of up-and-coming pacemen to deliver the goods on the bouncy Australian wickets.
The tourists delayed releasing their starting eleven on Wednesday, but interest focuses on whether they will be able to unveil their new-ball attack of Jermaine Lawson, recovering from recent heel surgery, Fidel Edwards, Daren Powell and Corey Collymore.
Edwards has taken 45 wickets in 17 Tests at 44.02, Lawson 50 wickets in 12 Tests at 27,84 and Powell 34 wickets in 12 Tests at 37,35.
”Fidel is one of those guys who is a wicket-taker and can come out and win games for us and he’s got pace. Jermaine [Lawson] is similar,” Chanderpaul said, without giving too much away.
Chanderpaul said he is not concerned about Lara’s form slump.
”I’m not worried about Brian too much. Brian is one of those guys who can turn his game at any time,” he said.
”It’s up to him now to turn it on if he wants to.”
Since arriving in Australia last month to play for the World XI, Lara has failed to reach double figures in five of his six innings here — 0, 5, 0 in the one-day series, 5 and 36 in the Super Test match and one against Queensland.
The West Indian superstar, just 316 runs away from becoming Test cricket’s all-time leading runscorer, is considerably underdone for match batting practice before he faces nemesis Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Shane Warne at the Gabba.
McGrath has claimed Lara’s wicket 13 times in Tests, the most by any rival bowler.
Lara is one of Test cricket’s greats with 30 centuries — eight of them against Australia since 1993 — and closing in on Australian Allan Border’s all-time record of 11,174 runs in 156 Tests.
The West Indian has 10,859 runs in 118 Tests, placing him third behind Border and another Australian Steve Waugh (10 927 runs in 168 Tests).
Australia’s last defeat at the Gabba was by the West Indies in 1988 by nine wickets. – AFP
