Sarwan's Windies aim to blow away the form book against England

Just one look at the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test matches gives an indication of the scale of the task facing the West Indies in its upcoming series against England that starts at Lord's in London on Thursday.

Six members of the home side's squad occupy places in the top 30 batting places while the West Indies can boast just two while, in the bowling list, England has four players in the top 30 while the West Indies squad has just a single representative.

And with a massive 42 rating points between the two line-ups in the LG ICC Test Championship table and the recent retirement of one of the world's great batsmen, Brian Lara, also making a serious dent in the West Indies top-order, most indicators seem to be pointing towards a comfortable series win for the home side.

One man who will be keen to rip up that form book, however, is the new West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan, and he can still feel he has grounds for optimism to do just that.

His two batsmen inside the top 30 places of the LG ICC Player Rankings, Shivnarine Chanderpaul (20th) and Chris Gayle (26th), are both full of experience and have the ability to play long innings, and the same applies to Sarwan himself, in 31st position.

All-rounder Dwayne Bravo, who burst onto the scene on the last tour of England three years ago, lies 38th in the batting list while vice-captain and opener Daren Ganga is ten places further back.

And in Runako Morton the West Indies has a player eager to dominate any attack, as he showed in making an unbeaten 103 against Somerset in the side's only tour match ahead of the Lord's encounter.

With the ball, much will depend on the experience of Corey Collymore, the West Indies' highest-placed player in the LG ICC Player Rankings in 11th position, while Jerome Taylor, currently 36th in the list, can expect to rise much higher if he fulfils the promise he has already shown in his fledging career of just 10 Tests.

England, however, is bound to be confident ahead of the series, despite the absence of captain Michael Vaughan with a broken finger, injury clouds over leading batsman Kevin Pietersen (calf) and all-rounder Andrew Flintoff (ankle) and the fact that the last time it played Test cricket, it lost 5-0 to Australia.

Pietersen is England's highest-ranked batsman in the LG ICC Player Rankings, in third place, but there are three other England players in the top 20 - acting captain Andrew Strauss (13th), Paul Collingwood (14th) and Ian Bell (17th), while further down the list comes Alastair Cook (23rd) and Flintoff (27th), as well as Marcus Trescothick (22nd), currently having a break from international cricket.

The bowling table is equally reassuring for England with Matthew Hoggard its highest ranked player in fifth position. The retirement of Australia's Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath means Hoggard is now just six rating points behind India's Anil Kumble, who lies third, so the Yorkshireman has plenty of incentive to start the international summer with a decent haul of wickets.

Flintoff is England's other representative in the top 10 bowling positions while Stephen Harmison, a player who, by his own admission, underperformed in that disastrous recent series against Australia, lies 17th.

The last time Harmison faced the West Indies, in 2004, he reached the top of the LG ICC Player Rankings and his best Test figures of 7-12 are against the same opponents, at Sabina Park, Jamaica in that same year.

Meanwhile, in 30th spot is left-arm spinner Monty Panesar and, as a point of interest, the last time England played a Test against the West Indies at Lord's, another left-arm slow bowler, Ashley Giles, took nine wickets to hasten the home side to victory. Panesar will be hoping for more of the same in the match starting on Thursday.

Flintoff lies second in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test all-rounders, behind South Africa's Jacques Kallis, while the West Indies' highest representative in that list is Gayle, in seventh position.

The batting table is topped by Australia's Ricky Ponting, closely followed by Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan with Pietersen in third place.

Muttiah Muralidaran of Sri Lanka heads the bowling list ahead of South Africa's Makhaya Ntini, Kumble and another South African, Shaun Pollock.

The large gap between the two sides in the LG ICC Test Championship table means that even if England repeats its 4-0 clean-sweep of three years ago it will only gain one rating point.

That is because the table is weighted so that a side gets more credit for performing well against sides ranked above it in the list; and with England so far ahead of the West Indies it means the home side is expected to win comfortably.

The reverse of that is, of course, that if the West Indies can turn the tables and win, draw or even lose the series narrowly then its own rating will benefit. A 1-0 series win will see it gain eight rating points but even that will still leave the West Indies well behind the side immediately above it in the table, seventh-placed New Zealand, currently 21 rating points clear.

The LG ICC Test Championship table is headed by Australia, 21 points clear of England, with Pakistan third and India in fourth position.

The schedule for the England - West Indies series is as follows:

17 - 21 May - first Test, Lord's, London
25 - 29 May - Second Test, Leeds
7 - 11 June - Third Test, Manchester
15 - 19 June - Fourth Test, Chester-le-Street