WI brace for Aussie assault

Though the tourists played beyond expectations in their only warm-fixture at Allan Border Field, head coach Bennett King is under no illusions about the challenge facing his relatively young side in the very different atmosphere of the Gabba.

"The Test match will be very tough. Australia are a very good side, a totally different team to one we’ve just been playing on a totally different wicket," King observed in the lead-up to the start of the three-match series.

"Although we’ve taken positives out of that game, we’re aware that what’s in front of us is something completely different as well."

Having trounced the Rest of the World XI in the three one-dayers and "Super Test" of a hugely disappointing "Super Series" last month, Ricky Ponting’s Australians will be seeking to annihilate the West Indies in what most observers here see as nothing more than stepping stones to the campaign to regain the Ashes from England in a year’s time.

They have suffered one setback with experienced opener Justin Langer ruled out with a fractured rib sustained in a domestic one-day match last Saturday.

His place at the top of the order alongside Matthew Hayden has been taken by uncapped West Australian team-mate Mike Hussey, who first played against the Caribbean side as a 21-year-old for his state team when veteran fast bowler Courtney Walsh was at the helm on the 1996/97 tour.

Nathan Bracken, the 27-year-old left-arm seamer, is expected to revive his Test career at the expense of Stuart MacGill, despite the leg-spinner’s nine-wicket haul in the "Super Test" on a dusty Sydney Cricket Ground surface.

However with the Brisbane weather behaving better than expected leading up to the match, MacGill may still have an outside chance of partnering Shane Warne in a double-spin assault on the West Indies depending on Ponting’s reading of the pitch on the first morning and the weather forecast over the next five days.

Of course, the Australian captain will be banking on the cunning and accuracy of the most successful fast bowler in Test history, Glenn McGrath, and the raw pace of Brett Lee to make early inroads before any of the other bowlers step up to the crease.

In the wake of Marlon Samuels’ spectacular all-round effort against Queensland, the 24-year-old Jamaican is certain to play his first Test for two-and-a-half years, completing a batting line-up that virtually selects itself, even with star batsman Brian Lara woefully out of form in the countdown to the series.

Given their individual records that suggest that the batsmen at least have the potential to post decent totals, much will be expected of the top-order if the crop of generally inexperienced bowlers is to have any chance of putting the hosts under pressure.

In choosing to rest Jermaine Lawson, Fidel Edwards and Corey Collymore from the only warm-up match in the hope that they will be fit and raring to go for the Test, King knows that he is taking a chance.

"I guess it’s a risk either way you go," he conceded. "We decided as a group to go down this route (resting those players). The proof will be in the Test match, whether they are a bit stale or haven’t had enough bowling under their belts. If it doesn’t go very well, I guess the criticism will come our way, but if they are fresh and do very well, people slap you on the back. "That’s how it is in sport. You take risks and you take gambles, and that’s the way that we’ve approached this particular series."

Although Daren Powell was still the feeling lingering effects of the sore hip that prevented him from bowling in the second innings at Allan Border Field, he, along with Lara (finger) and vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan (knee) went through their paces at a lengthy training session on a warm Tuesday afternoon at the Gabba.

However team management was less than pleased when the Queensland Cricket Association’s promise of providing net bowlers failed to materialise and therefore reduced the intensity and effectiveness of the exercise.

Powell’s first innings effort against the Bulls last Thursday — when he picked up four wickets — suggests that he should get into the final eleven once passed fit, and with Dwayne Bravo now expected to shoulder a greater responsibility with his medium-pacers, the last two bowling spots could go to Edwards and Collymore, with Lawson still being eased back into a full workload following heel surgery before the squad left the Caribbean.

They were historic winners the last time the two teams met in a Test match — in Antigua, 2003 — but Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s men are under no illusions about the enormity of the task facing them on the ground where they were trounced by an innings and 126 runs in less than three days at the start of the corresponding series five years ago. That heavy defeat paved the way for a 5-0 mauling under Jimmy Adams’ stewardship, and with the former world champions continuing to stumble from one series loss to another, their abysmal record no doubt influenced the Australian authorities in granting them just a three-Test series for the first time in 24 years.

Even in the funny old game of cricket, a West Indian victory to start the series will be nothing short of miraculous. More realistically, they will have to try to be competitive by doing justice to their ability if these players are to start repairing the tattered image of West Indies cricket in this extremely difficult series.

Teams:

AUSTRALIA (probable) - Ricky Ponting (captain), Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey, Michael Clarke, Simon Katich, Shane Watson, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath, Nathan Bracken.

WEST INDIES (probable) - Shivnarine Chanderpaul (captain), Chris Gayle, Devon Smith, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Brian Lara, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo, Denesh Ramdin, Daren Powell, Fidel Edwards, Corey Collymore.