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They have already heard from Sabina Park curator Patrick Gordon that "it's going to be a competitive strip" but will want more specific information.

They will solicit advice from Jamaican players, past and present, who should know the ground best and study details of recent Tests and Busta Cup matches.

Up until half-hour before the toss, they will inspect the pitch with the intensity of degreed archaeologists.

When they have done all that, captain Carl Hooper, coach Roger Harper and selectors Mike Findlay, Joey Carew and Joel Garner must settle on the West Indies' most effective bowling combination for the fifth, final and decisive Cable & Wireless Test against India, starting tomorrow.

The choice is straightforward. Either they retain four fast bowlers, as they have done in the preceding three Tests, or they revert to the policy of Hooper's first 13 Tests as captain and reinstate the specialist spinner, in this case Dinanath Ramnarine with his leg-breaks and googlies.

After the experience of the drawn fourth Test at the Antigua Recreation Ground that was submerged under a sea of runs, they are bound to be wary of what they are told.

In the preceding Test at Kensington Oval, ground supervisor Richard Edwards' prognosis of the pitch which head groundsman Hendy Davis and his staff had prepared proved spot on.

Hooper bowed to Edwards' insistence that he should bowl on winning the toss, promising him that there was grass and life in the surface in spite of its beige colour.

It was a decision that was the virtual match-winner as India, without a practising spinner in sight, were bowled out for 102 and 296 and beaten by ten wickets.

In Antigua, they were assured that the surface would be hard and bouncy, as encouraging for fast bowlers as that at Kensington a week earlier.

Instead, Merv Dillon, Cameron Cuffy, Pedro Collins and Adam Sanford, the same pace quartet that had done the job at Kensington, toiled over two days before India declared at 513 for nine.

"You always seem to be wiser after the event," Hooper observed afterwards. "We gambled with four fast bowlers because we thought they did the job for us, not only in Trinidad (in the second Test when India totalled 339 and 218 but won), but also in Barbados.

"It didn't do the job for us here and maybe there is something to learn for the future," he added in what seemed a hint, if no more, that there would be a change for Sabina,whose recent history is revealing.

Since the disaster of 1998 against England, when the relaid pitch proved to be such a minefield that the match was abandoned into its tenth over, the West Indies have won all three Tests – Australia in 1999 and Zimbabwe in 2000, both by ten wickets, and South Africa last year by 130 runs.

Nehemiah Perry's off-spin claimed five second-innings wickets against Australia. Ramnarine had three key second-innings wickets against South Africa and Hooper one.

Hooper himself had the chance to make a long, first-hand assessment of Sabina six weeks ago while leading Guyana's triumph in the Busta International Shield final against Jamaica.

Twenty of the 33 wickets in that match were taken by spinners McGarrell, Mahendra Nagamootoo and himself for Guyana, Gareth Breese and Ryan Cunningham for Jamaica.

Even after Antigua, Hooper and his colleagues will not be easily persuaded to abandon a pace-based attack that took all 20 Indian wickets in two successive Tests for the variation of spin.

But it is a topic that must seriously occupy their minds over the next couple of days.

© Barbados Nation