The setback has compounded growing West Indies' problems three days before the start of the first Test in Johannesburg Thursday.

Manager Clive Lloyd's disclosure followed the deflating loss to Orange Free State here yesterday and adds to earlier injuries that have sidelined Jimmy Adams – until at least the third Test with severed tendons in his right hand – and handicapped Courtney Walsh who is being treated for tendonitis in his left knee.

Lloyd said team management had made a request for the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to have a replacement.

It would have to involve not only the team management here, the WICB itself and the selection panel of Mike Findlay and Joey Carew, back in the Caribbean, and Joel Garner, currently managing the ``A'' team in India.

Rawl Lewis, the Windward Islands' leg-spinner currently on the ``A'' team tour, seems the obvious choice.

Already, left-handed batsman Floyd Reifer has been flown in from the ``A'' team tour as a replacement for Adams.

Ramnarine, the 23-year-old Trinidadian on his first major tour, was clearly struggling for control during 29 consecutive overs on the third day of the Orange Free State match.

He was hit for four sixes and 17 fours as he conceded 138 runs for his three wickets in his first spell of the tour.

Captain Brian Lara described Ramnarine as ``definitely a key part of the attack'', pointing out that he had played an important role in victories over England in his two Tests in the Caribbean last season. ``He is a very confident individual and someone who has eased into the West Indies team quite well.

``We've had spinners over the years who came and went but he seems as if he wants to stick around and perform at his best.''

Ramnarine has had the problem, a muscular weakness that impedes the rotation of the right shoulder and prevents him from throwing over-arm, for some time.

It was noticeable during the Red Stripe Bowl in October but he did not have to bowl more than 10 overs in an innings in the limited-overs tournament.

It begs the question how come he was allowed to come on the tour in the first place, clearly not 100 per cent physically fit. It seems another example of the WICB not keeping its word.

After its general meeting in Grenada in May, president Pat Rousseau proclaimed that the WICB had engaged Dr. Sam Headley, a Barbadian and associate professor in exercise psychology at Springfield College in the US, to set up a medical, physical and optical testing programme for all players chosen for the West Indies, from under-15 level up.

``If you get selected to a team and we send you to the person who does the testing and you fail with no time to get ready, you'll be put out of the side and a replacement found,'' he warned at the time.

``They are professionals and if they can't get themselves physically fit, then they can't fulfil their contracts.''

It proved to be another of the many instances of presidential bluster.

It transpires that the majority of the players on the current tour were not physically tested by the WICB, Ramnarine among them.