Hall: All will be well

COME February 9 - Cape Town, South Africa - the West Indies will be ready.

You can count on it.

So says president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), Reverend Wes Hall, who said the team heading to the upcoming World Cup would be the best prepared West Indies ever to attend the prestigious tournament. The Windies started a two-week camp in Antigua yesterday, and will leave via Barbados on January 28.

"The board has done everything to ensure the team is ready," Hall said yesterday afternoon. "During the two-week camp there will be a very packed programme and this will be the best prepared West Indies team ever."

Hall, a fast bowling legend who took 192 wickets in 48 Tests between 1958 and 1969, also said the West Indies would be contracting a South African physiotherapist and massage therapist to join the team during the World Cup.

The officials on tour would therefore be manager Ricky Skerritt, chairman of selectors Sir Viv Richards, coach Roger Harper, trainer Ronald Rogers, analyst Garfield Smith, as well as the two to be contracted.

The president also expressed delight at the wonderful form of star batsman Brian Lara during his 71 in the Gerry Gomez Classic on Saturday. The WICB had given Lara, who was out of the game with "suspected hepatitis" since last September, permission to miss the opening day of the camp and remain in his homeland for some time in the middle.

"It was a cricketing decision and those are decisions cricketers make," Hall said. "We understood the position and we recognised what would be needed after being out of the game for a long period."

Hall was excited about the team's chances and said as long as the groundwork was put in during the camp the West Indies should be among the top sides.

He said that former West Indies batting legend Sir Everton Weekes, who is in Antigua for the WICB's cricket committee meeting, was slated to deliver a speech tonight. Bob Wieland, the American motivational speaker with no legs, was invited through Barbadian Errol Griffith and will also deliver a lecture.

"We have been playing for the last ten months and this camp will be geared to suit the side," Hall said. "The players will be using the Jolly Beach facility with gym, pool, the grounds are wonderful and preparations have been carefully analysed to meet the team's needs.

"We have come up with a great programme. The first week will be under Rogers and the second week under Harper. During the second week, when we have the simulated matches, we have asked Andy Roberts to make the pitches quicker; something along the line we would encounter in South Africa. We have [Vasbert] Drakes and [Nixon] McLean in the team and they would be able to share some of their knowledge of the conditions there."

The West Indies are grouped in Pool B with South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Kenya and Canada.