West Indies seek confidence in New Zealand

The West Indies begin their tour of New Zealand on Thursday, looking to regain some of the potency that once made them the most feared Test side in the world.

While they look to rediscover their strengths, the opening game of the tour, a Twenty20 encounter, will also serve as a farewell to Chris Cairns, one of the all-time strongmen of New Zealand cricket.

For the West Indies to arrive in New Zealand as underdogs was once unheard of, yet they have been unable to recover from the slump they suffered on their last tour there in 1999. They started that tour with a 276-run partnership between Adrian Griffith and Sherwin Campbell for the first wicket in the first Test, and went on to be whitewashed 2-0 and 5-0 respectively in the Test and one-day series.

This time their batting line-up includes Test cricket's leading run-scorer Brian Lara, who is only available for the Test matches, as well as Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle.

But their bowling attack lacks potency and has been further weakened by the withdrawal of Corey Collymore. After losing 15 of their last 17 one-day internationals, and 12 of the last 15 Tests, West Indies languish in eighth place in the world Test and one-day rankings, ahead of only Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

Yet, despite the lowly figures, Bennett King, the coach, believes it would be unwise to write his team off. "When it's a two-horse race you're always (in with) a chance," he said. "A lot of our players can perform well, and they have at various times on the world stage. We've got a lot of hope and a lot of expectation because we've got some young people that need to start showing the world what they can do."

Two of the standout young players are wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin and Dwayne Bravo, the 22-year-old allrounder, who averaged 53.5 with the bat and took eight wickets in two Tests against Australia last year.

"Bravo and Ramdin both played very well in the last two matches against Australia," Chanderpaul, the captain, said. "Dwayne is a great talent and is a great guy who can lift the rest of the team."

New Zealand will be without long-serving Cairns when the ODI series begins, and Stephen Fleming, the captain, believes it could take three players to cover the roles performed by Cairns in New Zealand's one-day side.

"We've lost a player who could win matches and whenever we went on to the field with him, we knew we were in with a chance of winning the game," Fleming said. "What we have to try to do is find a way to replicate that. Whether that's through one player, two players or even three players, we have to try to find a formula for making up for a loss of a player who is a once in a lifetime player."

Unfortunately, the three players Fleming had in mind - Jacob Oram, Kyle Mills and Andre Adams- are all injured and won't be taking any part in the opening two matches. But New Zealand have the satisfaction of knowing that fast bowler Shane Bond had fully overcome his back problems in the recent 4-1 one-day series win over Sri Lanka while wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum is developing a growing reputation as an allrounder.

The first of the five one-dayers begins at Wellington next Saturday, and the three-Test series starts at Auckland on March 9.