India haven't won a Test match in the West Indies since 1976. If Sourav Ganguly and his men are to emulate those Port-of-Spain heroes, they will have to get past a home side desperate to salvage honour carelessly lost in recent years. We take at a close look at the key performers - the men who are the stumbling blocks between India and calypsos being composed in their honour by Lord Relator's descendents. Carl Hooper
Hooper has always enjoyed batting against the Indians (he averages 40.87 against them against a career average of 35.10) and many fans will remember the brilliant hundreds he scored at Kolkata (1988) and Kingston (1997). His current tenure as captain has been rocky, but Hooper himself has batted with some of the grace and fluidity that made him such a joy to watch in the early days of his career. He is one of the best players of spin in the West Indian side and his batting lower down the order will be crucial if his team are to keep Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble at bay. His occasional offspinners will find gainful employment throughout the series but it's with the bat that Hooper needs to set the tone for his side. The off-drive when he's on song is one of those rare cricketing shots worth going miles to see.

Chris Gayle
His career stats don't add up to much - 816 runs at 30.22 - but Gayle could be one of India's bogeymen in this series. A tall, upright left-hander who can wallop the ball with tremendous power, he combines brute force with the casual elegance one always associates with those that play with the 'wrong' hand. Made a big hundred in Zimbabwe last year, but it's the two gorgeous fifties he made with almost reckless fluency against Pakistan in Sharjah that should make India especially wary. If West Indian cricket does stage a dramatic revival, count on Gayle to make some sizeable contributions.

Ramnaresh Sarwan
After watching him play England in the summer of 2000, Michael Henderson of the Daily Telegraph called him "a very, very good batsmen, potentially a great one". His caveat was that they shouldn't put too much pressure on him too soon. In Australia though, he was like a trapeze artist without the safety net, lured into mistake after mistake by the unforgiving Aussie bowlers. He learnt his lessons there and played some excellent knocks on the tour of Sri Lanka, where he and Brian Lara were the only ones to stand up to Muttiah Muralitharan. Still only 21, Sarwan is a wristy and cultured strokemaker. Comparisons with Rohan Kanhai should wait until he has a few hundreds under his belt, but expect him to send the Indians on a few leather hunts between now and the end of this five-Test series.

Brian Lara
Watching Lara bat in Sri Lanka was like watching an ageing composer reach back into the recesses of memory to produce the kind of symphonies that made him the artist he is. It was batsmanship in its most evolved form and it brought with it echoes of scintillating Lara knocks down the years. Rarely in recent seasons has Murali been mastered the way he was by Lara. The fluent drives, the impudent flicks off the pads and the deft dabs past point were in full evidence as Lara won the battle of two modern masters. After the unfortunate injury that cut short that remarkable tour, he finds himself face-to-face with an Indian team that bowls pretty poorly to left-handers. Lara has just the one century against India, 103 at St. Johns when they last toured the islands, but expect him to improve on that record, especially with the Caribbean pitches heavily loaded in the batsmen's favour.

Mervyn Dillon
He made his debut against the Indians at Port-of-Spain in 1997 but since then, it's been a struggle to cement a place in the side. A fast-medium bowler with a rhythmic action, Dillon has shown signs recently that he is ready to assume the mantle of bowling spearhead, an onerous task when you consider the greats that have gone before. His bowling in the recent series against Pakistan at Sharjah was simply outstanding and but for some aversion on the fielders' part to taking catches, he would have netted a big haul. Has the raw pace and the ability to extract bounce, two qualities that the Indians will be wary of.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com India.

Indian players to watch

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