Home advantage

But for one remarkable statistic, the West Indies would start their Cable & Wireless Test series against South Africa at Bourda today as abject no-hopers.

It is merely a month since they returned from a morale-shattering tour of Australia where they were trounced in all five Tests, just as they were the last time they met their present opponents in South Africa two years ago.

In the aftermath of the Australian experience, that stretched their dismal overseas record to 18 defeats in 20 Tests, they have changed captains for the fourth time in five years, replacing Jimmy Adams with Carl Hooper in a decision controversial and contentious even by West Indian standards.

As well as Adams, they have also dropped vice-captain Sherwin Campbell and four others engaged in the series in Australia.

Hooper, now 34 and an experienced cricketer yet to fulfil his obvious potential, finds himself at the helm almost 12 years after his debut Test and two years after suddenly announcing his retirement from international cricket.

He starts, exactly a week after he was named in the post, with his accession overshadowed by a widely publicised debate in which two icons of West Indies cricket, Michael Holding and Sir Garry Sobers, have been most strident in their objections for his perceived past lack of commitment.

To add to the problems, Hooper and seven of his squad of 13 only arrrived in Georgetown on Wednesday night after the delayed Busta Shield final in Kingston. It left one day for practice, planning and preparation against a team which has lost only one, contrived Test and won 10 of their last 15.

So, apart from the well established idiosyncracies of this great game, what is there to give the West Indies any encouragement at all?

It is the most favourable factor in world sport and it's called home advantage.

While the West Indies have been humiliated wherever their travels have taken them these past five years, they have remained virtually invincible in the familiar enviroment of home.

Only once since 1973, when Ian Chappell's Australians came, saw and conquered, have the West Indies lost a series in the Caribbean. Australians, 1995 variety under Mark Taylor in 1995, were again the victors.

When Hooper walks onto a packed Bourda this morning, in the maroon West Indies colours many feared he would never wear again, he would be at home in every sense of the word.

He was born, grew up and learned his cricket in Georgetown and he has played at Bourda for the Georgetown Cricket Club. So his reception will shake the rafters of the wooden stands around the quaint little ground, more especially because they feel here he has been unfairly criticised.

After his outstanding deeds in the Busta Series [a record 954 runs, four hundreds and 24 wickets] that earned him recall and his new position, he is regarded in Georgetown with the same reverence that Sachin Tendulkar is in Bombay or Brian Lara in Port-of-Spain.

They see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil of their hero here and woe betide anyone who does.

Long before the selectors or the WICB got around to considering the matter, his country's president Bharrat Jagdeo publicly advocated Hooper's elevation.

Yesterday, Sir Viv Richards added his considerable support, no doubt a welcome antidote to the recent negativity.

Hooper acknowledged yesterday that there were a few of the new, young players he still had to get acquainted with and one of his first, unenviable tasks last night was informing the two to be omitted from the 13.

It was eventually decided that Shivnarine Chanderpaul and his fellow Guyanese Reon King would be the reserves.

Bourda is unusually parched after two months of unseasonal drought and parts of the outfield are cracked and dusty.

The pitch was typically Bourda, hard, flat and enough to bring frowns to those who rely on pace, bounce and movement off the seam. Courtney Walsh sends down his first ball only six away from the magical number of 500 Test wickets while, on the other side, Allan Donald had 311 and captain Shaun Pollock 211. Like so many of their type before them, they are unlikely to leave Bourda with happy memories.

Leg-spinner Dinanath Ramnarine on the ground where he debuted three years ago and Hooper himself with his off-spin for the West Indies and the orthodox left-armer Nicky Boje can prepare for plenty of work.

That is if the rain doesn't certainly materialise, as it so often does whenever they put three stumps in the ground at Bourda.