`Shiv' gets thumbs up

Leeds - After a weekend spent licking their wounds from a humbling two-day, innings defeat in the fourth Test, the West Indies get back to serious business this morning with the boost of Shivnarine Chanderpaul's return to action.

Chanderpaul has been given the all-clear by the doctor treating the damaged tendons in his right elbow that have kept him inactive since the second Test at Lord's ended on June 30.

He will bat for the first time at the team's first practice session since the Test loss at the same Headingley ground where they collapsed to 61 all out on Friday.

If there are no complications, he will play in the four-day match against Somerset at Taunton, starting on Wednesday, with the expectation that he would be ready for the decisive fifth and final Test at the Oval.

The West Indies must win to share the series and retain the Wisden Trophy they have held since 1973.

Franklyn Rose, who was ruled out of the fourth Test by a sprained right ankle, is also fit again and expected to return against Somerset.

'Shiv has got the all-clear but will continue receiving therapy since the injury is still not 100 per cent healed,' manager Ricky Skerritt said yesterday.

'The doctor has assured him that batting will cause no further damage although he will experience some pain and for that he will have medication.'

Chanderpaul had scored centuries in each of the two matches, against Worcestershire and Zimbabwe, prior to the first Test, in which he topscored with 79. The injury occurred during his first Test innings but was aggravated when he was prompted into playing in the second Test.

With 2 602 runs at an average of 40 in his 44 Tests, Chanderpaul's solidity and experience would bolster the fragile batting, although his return would pose some problems about changes in the order.

The likeliest option is for Wavell Hinds to move up to No. 1 with Chanderpaul at No. 3, positions to which neither is unfamiliar. But there are others.

The players were given time by management to relax and gather their thoughts over the weekend after Friday's numbing experience.

While others remained in Leeds, Brian Lara, along with Skerritt, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Adrian Griffith, spent yesterday afternoon as guests of his long-time Tobagonian friend Dwight Yorke at Manchester United's opening Premier League football match of the season at their Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester. They drove the hour-and-a-half to Manchester in the morning to join 67 500 others who watched the hosts beat Newcastle United 2-0.

But Yorke spent most of the time on the substitute's bench before manager Sir Alex Ferguson brought him on for the final 15 minutes in which he was largely anonymous.

Skerritt said the tour management had a meeting on Saturday afternoon to review the debacle of Headingley and to plan for the remainder of the tour.

'These ups and downs are disturbing but we have already shown we have the capacity to beat England, as we must to keep the Wisden Trophy,' he said.

'It is a matter now of concentrating on the positives to rebuild confidence and to get ready for a big effort in the final Test at the Oval.'