Lo­cal crick­et fans will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see a West In­dies ver­sus In­dia Test match for the first time in 14 years when the fourth and fi­nal match in the cur­rent se­ries gets un­der­way Thurs­day at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

The T&T Crick­et Board yes­ter­day ex­tend­ed a warm "Tri­ni" wel­come to the In­dia par­ty in­clu­sive of play­ers, man­age­ment of­fi­cials, jour­nal­ists and fans.

The last time the teams played a Test match in T&T was in 2002, when In­dia won in a low-scor­ing af­fair at which leg­endary bats­man Sachin Ten­dulkar got the on­ly cen­tu­ry of the match, a fine 117 runs in the first in­nings. The present play­ing squads how­ev­er show no sur­vivors of that en­counter 14 years ago.

In­dia first toured the West In­dies in 1953 where the open­ing match was played at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do. Test crick­et be­tween the old ri­vals dates back to 1948 when West In­dies trav­elled to In­dia and won a five-Test se­ries 1-0. Sir Ever­ton Weekes, who had a spec­tac­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful tour is a sur­vivor of that in­au­gur­al se­ries.

The first match of that tour start­ed on Oc­to­ber 19, 1948 and closed on March 2, 1949. In­dia vis­it­ed the Caribbean for the first time in 1953 and West In­dies won the se­ries 1-0 in an­oth­er five-Test Se­ries. The home team won the Sec­ond Test in Bar­ba­dos with the oth­er four match­es, two in T&T and one in Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos each, were all drawn.

T&T spin­ner Son­ny Ramd­hin fea­tured in the se­ries as well as Sub­ash Gupte of In­dia, who lat­er mar­ried a lo­cal girl and set­tled in San Fer­nan­do.

In­ter­est­ing­ly in the Fifth Test match of that se­ries in Ja­maica, the fa­mous "three Ws" of West In­dies crick­et (Sir Frank Wor­rell, Sir Ever­ton Weekes and Clyde Wal­cott) all got cen­turies with Wor­rell com­pil­ing a mon­u­men­tal 237 runs.

An­oth­er lo­cal play­er who par­tic­i­pat­ed in ear­ly West In­dies/In­dia en­coun­ters was T&T all-rounder Willie Ro­driguez who played in the 1961/62 se­ries.

It will not be sur­pris­ing to some that the high­est run scor­er in WI/In­dia en­coun­ters is In­di­an leg­end, open­ing bats­man Sunil Gavaskar who tops the list with 2,749 runs in 27 Tests.

He is fol­lowed by for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Clive Lloyd, a leg­end in his own right, hard-hit­ting scor­er of 2,344 runs in 28 Tests. An­oth­er no­table name to make his mark in bat­tles be­tween the two teams was Sir Ever­ton Weekes with 1,495 stroke-filled runs in 10 Tests at an as­tound­ing av­er­age of 106.78.

The bowl­ing records show pac­er In­di­an Kapil Dev as the high­est wick­et-tak­er with 89 wick­ets in 23 match­es, and for West In­dies the late speed­ster Mal­colm Mar­shall who grabbed 76 wick­ets in 17 Tests.Present In­di­an coach and out­stand­ing spin­ner Anil Kum­ble se­cured 74 wick­ets in 17 match­es as well.

Hav­ing al­ready sur­ren­dered the se­ries to their guests, lo­cal crick­et fans can nev­er­the­less look for­ward to a com­pet­i­tive en­counter of his­toric im­por­tance, weath­er per­mit­ting.