Vin­ode Mam­chan

The West In­dies crick­eters will be hop­ing the Almighty sends bless­ings by keep­ing the rain away, so that they could get in the full five days in the sec­ond Test against New Zealand which be­gins at 10am to­day at the Queen's Park Oval.

The strug­gling West In­dies lost the open­ing Test by 186 runs at Sabi­na Park in Ja­maica, and will be hop­ing that the weath­er holds so that they can have an even chance of win­ning the sec­ond Test.

Rain has been in the air over the past week and the fore­cast is for more over the com­ing few days. This does not make good read­ing but hope­ful­ly there will be enough time to get in enough crick­et for a mean­ing­ful match.

Yes­ter­day the lo­cals had a work out at the Oval and from all re­ports every­thing is fine with the squad in terms of in­jury. The team spir­it re­mains up­beat de­spite the open­ing loss and with the new play­ers com­ing in there is op­ti­mism.

Jer­maine Black­wood and Leon John­son come in­to the fray re­plac­ing Keiran Pow­ell and Mar­lon Samuels re­spec­tive­ly. There is a strong in­di­ca­tion that the home team would go in­to this Test with a third pac­er in the form of Shan­non Gabriel and use one spin­ner. The track at the Oval has changed in re­cent years and would give as­sis­tance to the fast bowlers as well.

Skip­per De­nesh Ramdin is back­ing his boys to come good. "We have no choice but to go all out in this Test. We have the tal­ent to win match­es against New Zealand and it has been frus­trat­ing that the re­sults have not come our way.

"Hope­ful­ly the guys can go out there and give off their best, so that we can come back in­to this se­ries and have a chance at even win­ning it. We have been work­ing hard and it is all in the head right now. The guys have to be pos­i­tive, go out there and be­lieve in them­selves and their team­mates and we can be right back in this se­ries."

Ramdin said the pitch at the Oval should be a sport­ing one which would give as­sis­tance to who­ev­er is will­ing to work for it. "We have the bat­ting and bowl­ing at­tack to suit this pitch and once we go at the op­po­si­tion pos­i­tive­ly we would get the re­sult we want."

Mean­while, New Zealand fast bowler Tim Southee who was bril­liant in the open­ing Test said: "Com­ing to Trinidad now, the last Test I played here I per­formed pret­ty well so I'm look­ing to bet­ter that per­for­mance or even top it. I'm just go­ing to go out there put in my best and give it a good shot.

"In Trinidad, the wick­et has got bet­ter over the years, so it's bet­ter for fast bowl­ing. So you've just got to go out there and put the work in, bowl some strong balls in good ar­eas, the bats­men will make mis­takes and you will get the wick­ets."

Teams

West In­dies: De­nesh Ramdin (capt), Chris Gayle, Kraigg Brath­waite, Kirk Ed­wards, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Jer­maine Black­wood, Leon John­son, Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, Ke­mar Roach, Jerome Tay­lor, Sulie­man Benn, Shane Shilling­ford, Ja­son Hold­er and Shan­non Gabriel.

New Zealand: Bren­don Mc­Cul­lum (capt), Corey An­der­son, Trent Boult, Mark Craig, Pe­ter Ful­ton, Tom Lath­am, Jim­my Nee­sham, Luke Ronchi, Hamish Ruther­ford, Ish Sod­hi, Tim Southee, Ross Tay­lor, Neil Wag­n­er, BJ Watling and Kane Williamson.