West Indies back to full strength

Brian Lara: ready to return to action for West Indies on his home ground © Getty Images

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For Shivnarine Chanderpaul, captaining the West Indies for the first time in Guyana, things went better than he could have hoped for. Even though his side ran out of steam on the final day, as Jacques Kallis guided South Africa to safety, he scored his maiden Test double-century, and gave West Indies cricket a renewed spirit after the depressing wrangle over player contracts.

But now comes an ever greater challenge - leading the West Indies out at the Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad, the homeground of Brian Lara, who, along with Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo are back in the side after terminating their Cable & Wireless contracts. The Trinidad authorities, and Lara himself, have made a concerted effort to welcome Chanderpaul's West Indies team, and build on the new spirit around the Caribbean. The public have responded, ticket sales have been better than predicted and it is hoped that 15,000 may attended the Queen's Park Oval, which, traditionally, is not well supported for Test matches.

With the recall of Lara, Sarwan, Gayle and Bravo the West Indies selectors have had to do some juggling, but there was never a doubt that these four would slot straight back into the side. The late withdrawal of Ryan Hinds has given another opportunity to Donavon Pagon, the highly promising right-hander, who began his Test career with a composed 35 in Guyana, after walking to the crease with his side struggling on 24 for 2. He showed an impressively straight bat, good footwork and positive strokeplay, and was unlucky to be left out of the original squad for this Test.

Pagon will drop down the order, with Sarwan and Lara returning at No's 3 and 4, and Gayle opening alongside Wavell Hinds, the other batting success at Guyana, in place of Devon Smith. The availability of Bravo will mean a different balance in the attack - the West Indies looked a seamer bowler short in the last match - with a four-pronged seam attack, supported by the part-time spin of Sarwan and Gayle.

The South Africans were given a real wake-up call in Guyana, which highlighted their poor preparation for this series. It consisted of a training camp in Antigua and no practice matches, but they can be expected to put in a better showing this time around, and will feel they got away with being rusty in Guyana. The Trinidad pitch is reported to have more life than the flat Bourda track, so South Africa's battery of seam bowlers will be a greater threat. But with Shaun Pollock again ruled out the attack does not have a world-class strike bowler, and will rely on the whole-hearted efforts of Makhaya Ntini and Andre Nel.

Monde Zondeki, who took 6 for 39 in his last Test against Zimbabwe, is set to earn a recall, to add more bite to an attack that looked fairly innocuous for large parts of the first Test. Unless South Africa are comfortable with Ntini batting at No 8, Zondeki will have to replace Charl Langeveldt, who struggled to find much swing in Guyana. The South Africans are struggling to replace Pollock's allround skills, and the runs of Andrew Hall and Nicky Boje are just as important as their bowling - Boje was treated especially harshly in Guyana - and going into a Test without Boje, their only recognised spinner, would leave Graeme Smith very short of options.

With the West Indies able to pick from a first-choice squad, and three world-class batsmen back in the fold, the South Africans are in for another searching examination. However, Smith will be determined to show that his team have learnt their lessons from Guyana and the West Indies may regret not finishing them off when they had their chance.

West Indies (probable) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Wavell Hinds, 3 Ramnaresh Sarwan, 4 Brian Lara, 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul (capt), 6 Donovan Pagon, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Courtney Browne (wkt), 9 Pedro Collins, 10 Daren Powell, 11 Reon King.

South Africa (probable) 1 Graeme Smith (capt), 2 AB de Villiers, 3 Jacques Rudolph, 4 Jacques Kallis, 5 Herschelle Gibbs, 6 Mark Boucher (wkt), 7 Andrew Hall, 8 Nicky Boje, 9 Makhaya Ntini, 10 Andre Nel, 11 Monde Zondeki.