BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, March 1:

Rev. Wes Hall, president of the West Indies Cricket Board, expects the 2002 Cable & Wireless Series between West Indies and India to be quite competitive.

Rev. Hall believes the visiting Indian cricket team can expect a warm reception right around the Caribbean and that will help to make the 2002 Cable & Wireless Series even more exciting.

"Our crowds, particularly in Trinidad and Guyana where you will not be short of support, have always received your type of play with approbation," Rev. Hall told the Indian squad during a three-hour stopover in Barbados on their way to Guyana.

As a consequence, this has always led to very competitive matches between our sides and we expect nothing less than this during your two months of cricket in the Caribbean, he added.

The Indians arrived on Easter Monday without captain Sourav Ganguly. He is attending to personal obligations and will join the side on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Indian vice-captain Rahul Dravid believes it will be an evenly contested series.

"West Indies have the advantage of playing at home and the pressure will be on them much more than it will be on us because we have nothing lose, but much more to gain from winning," remarked Dravid.

"Though they have not been playing too well on the road , West Indies has only lost two series at home in over 20 years, so that suggests it will not be an easy task for us. We will have to play competitively all around to be able to win this series," he added.

Indian coach John Wright, the former New Zealand opening batsman, is no stranger to the Caribbean. He was a member of Jeff Crowe's 1985 side that was pummelled by a fearsome West Indies side led by (Sir) Vivian Richards.

"The West Indies is a wonderful place to play cricket and we believe we have a wonderful opportunity to win away from home for the first time in a long time," he said. "I think the Caribbean is very much like Indian because the people have a great love for the game and are so knowledgeable. They know this side can play attractive cricket and if we play to our full potential we are capable of beating the best."

Inevitably, Wright was asked the question about a possible duel between West Indies Brian Lara and India's Sachin Tendulkar, arguably the two best batsmen in world cricket.

"A coach never likes to single out an individual player on his side or on the opposition side," Wright commented. "Sachin and Lara are two great players and they have a lot of respect for each other. We, however, have a few young, exciting players capable of influencing the outcome of the series."

India, who play five Tests and five limited-overs internationals in the 2002 Cable & Wireless Series, has not beaten West Indies in a rubber in the Caribbean for close to three decades, let alone won a series outside of the sub-continent in 16 years.

Squad:

Sourav Ganguly (captain), Rahul Dravid (vice-captain), Sanjay Bangar, Shiv Sunder Das, Deep Dasgupta, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, Wasim Jaffer, Venkata Sai Laxman, Dinesh Mongia, Ashish Nehra, Ajay Ratra, Javagal Srinath, Sachin Tendulkar, Tinu Yohannan.

John Wright (coach), Goutam Dasgupta (manager), Adrian LeRoux (trainer), Andrew Leipus (physiotherapist), Sumit Pai (analyst).

© WICB