Underprepared

The West Indians have arrived and are ready to play Test cricket, but the Wankhede Stadium is not up to it. The pitch has not seen any cricket on it, the outfield is so hard and patchy that parts of it have been painted green to fool the world, and the take-up of tickets has been 40%. It is, perversely, all Sachin Tendulkar's fault. Mumbai, Tendulkar's home ground, was meant to have hosted the third Test of this series, not the first. But the Indian and Mumbai cricket boards felt obliged to make Tendulkar the first player to have an itinerary rescheduled on the occasion of his 101st Test.

So now, the preparation time for a newly-laid centre has not been enough, the outfield has not been pampered as it should have been, and, because the match now falls just before exam time rather than during the Diwali holidays, students have not flocked in. Without Brian Lara, West Indies are a far less saleable product anyway. And at 38 degrees centigrade, it is five degrees hotter than a typical October in Mumbai - which is none of Tendulkar's fault.

The contest is not expected to go beyond the fourth day - if the players don't melt before that. The Wankhede pitch was never short of support for the bowlers in the first place. The previous two Tests here both ended in three days - India lost both. There was enough bounce and seam movement for the South Africans and Australians - and turn too, for Shane Warne and Mark Waugh - to exploit, and in both matches, Tendulkar, and he alone among the Indians, stood tall. While the curator expects the new pitch to retain the general properties of the Wankhede surface, there is a fear that it is underdone, and will keep lower.

India will field an improved version of the XI that played their last two Tests, in England. The balance will be the same - two spinners, two seamers and the gentle swing of Sanjay Bangar. But Javagal Srinath, who has apparently rethought Test retirement without having said so, will play ahead of Ajit Agarkar, who is no longer even in the squad.

West Indies will need to fill Lara's hole in the middle, and the man most likely to do that is Ryan Hinds, a young attacking left-hander. As if one Hinds, Wavell, who spanked a carefree 147 in the solitary warm-up game at Bangalore, was not enough. The seam bowling will be led by Mervyn Dillon, supported by Cameron Cuffy and Pedro Collins. Mahendra Nagamootoo will bowl his brisk legspin. Carl Hooper, despite a precautionary MRI scan on his knees, remains fit to lead in what will be his 100th Test. (Yes, he will be presented a memento along with Tendulkar.)

Whether or not revenge is on the minds of the Indians after losing 1-2 in the Caribbean earlier in the year is hard to tell. These contests do not have the edge, say, of an England-India encounter. But things have changed since May. India are more intense than they were then, after winning two one-day tournaments and drawing the away series in England. West Indies have lost a home series to New Zealand and, despite winning the one-dayers that followed, the most newsworthy features of their trip to Colombo for the Champions Trophy were Mervyn Dillon's match-losing wide and the lurid (and much-denied) reports of women in their team manager's room.

India have better batting than West Indies, a better spin attack, and equally good seam bowling. They are in possession of a genius, while hepatitis has robbed West Indies of theirs. And they are at home: in the heat, on what may be a crumbling surface. West Indies will need to raise themselves.

Probable teams
India 1 Sanjay Bangar, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Rahul Dravid, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 6 VVS Laxman, 7 Parthiv Patel (wk), 8 Anil Kumble, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Javagal Srinath.

West Indies 1 Wavell Hinds, 2 Chris Gayle, 3 Ramnaresh Sarwan, 4 Carl Hooper (capt), 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 6 Ryan Hinds, 7 Ridley Jacobs (wk), 8 Mahendra Nagamootoo, 9 Mervyn Dillon, 10 Cameron Cuffy, 11 Pedro Collins.