Vin­ode Mam­chan

As the na­tion takes to the land to­day to plant for Cor­pus Christi, with the hope of get­ting the fruits of their labour lat­er on, so will the West In­dies play­ers walk­ing out against South Africa on the Queen's Park turf, hop­ing for a new start and a brighter fu­ture. The re­gion­al team goes in­to to­day's fi­nal Dig­i­cel Lim­it­ed overs clash against South Africa at the Queen's Park Oval, try­ing to break a los­ing streak that has now ex­tend­ed to 10 match­es against their op­po­nents.

South Africa nick­name the Pro­teas, lead the cur­rent se­ries 4-0 and this mar­gin does not tell the re­al sto­ry. The home team has had oc­ca­sions dur­ing the se­ries, where they could have pushed for vic­to­ry but win­ning seemed to have be­come for­eign to them. Even at yes­ter­day's pre match press con­fer­ence there was no brava­do from skip­per Chris Gayle.The big Ja­maican left han­der said his team has fall­en in­to a rot and he hopes that they can come out of it to­day. "It is a men­tal sit­u­a­tion we've ac­tu­al­ly reached now, but we have to come out of the sit­u­a­tion as quick­ly as pos­si­ble be­cause, un­for­tu­nate­ly, los­ing is be­com­ing a habit and it's a bit dif­fi­cult to get out of," he added.

West In­dies cap­tain Chris Gayle, left, speaks to coach Ot­tis Gib­son dur­ing the West In­dies team train­ing ses­sion at the Queen's Park Oval yes­ter­day.

"That means that you don't know how to win games any­more, so we need to try and turn things around." The West In­dies se­lec­tors will have their work cut out in de­cid­ing on a fi­nal XI be­cause some of the play­ers com­ing off in­juries might not be used with the First Test, a week away. How­ev­er, on the flip side, they may want to se­lect their best team to avoid the 'white­wash'.Ja­maican fast bowler Jerome Tay­lor is back af­ter in­jury which means that David Bernard Jnr may make room for him. Spin­ner Sulie­man Benn, who fell out with Gayle in the last game may al­so make room for some­one else. Gayle stayed clear of com­ment­ing on his spat with Benn yes­ter­day.

The 30-year old Gayle said he was hop­ing for a big per­for­mance for his play­ers which he thinks they are ca­pa­ble off. "The guys are ca­pa­ble of win­ning games but they need to come with their best ef­fort in or­der to turn things around. They have worked hard dur­ing this se­ries and we are hop­ing to start see­ing the re­sults of this hard work."Mean­while, the South Africans prac­ticed yes­ter­day at the Sir Frank Wor­rell Ground in UWI. St. Au­gus­tine and they are ex­pect­ed to play a num­ber of play­ers who are in line to play in the open­ing Test. The vis­i­tors have played five ODI's against the West In­dies at this venue since 1992, they lost the first two but won the last three com­fort­ably. West In­dies have won their last five ODI's at this ground, in­clud­ing two wins over In­dia in 2006 and two over Sri Lan­ka in 2008.

Prepa­ra­tions for the match have been com­plet­ed and chair­man of the in­ter­na­tion­al match­es com­mit­tee Patrick Ram­per­sad said every­thing is all set. "We had a meet­ing with the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (WICB) reps as well as spon­sors Dig­i­cel and Sco­tia­bank and they are all hap­py with the prepa­ra­tions and look­ing for­ward to a good game." Ram­per­sad said that al­though the se­ries is al­ready gone, tick­ets sales have been fair and around 8,000 to 9,000 fans are ex­pect­ed to show up for to­day's game."Mean­while, the TTCB has warned that no glass bot­tles, large cool­ers and weapons will be al­lowed in­to the Oval.