CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – West In­dies mid­dle-or­der bats­man, Kavem Hodge, be­lieves the team will be test­ed men­tal­ly in their up­com­ing three-match Test se­ries against New Zealand.

The Windies will face off against the home side in the open­ing Test on De­cem­ber 2 and will be hope­ful of win­ning their first Test se­ries in New Zealand in over 30 years.

Speak­ing af­ter the team’s penul­ti­mate train­ing ses­sion on Sat­ur­day, ahead of the open­ing Test, Hodge ad­mit­ted that it was the men­tal as­pect of the game where he ex­pect­ed them to be test­ed most in the Test se­ries.

“The most im­por­tant thing is just the men­tal as­pect. We know when you get to this lev­el every­body has the skill, every­body has the tal­ent, so I think how we gel to­geth­er as a group and pre­pare men­tal­ly and be ready for the chal­lenge [is im­por­tant].

“We know New Zealand has a re­al­ly good record at home and that’s some­thing we have to be up to the chal­lenge for, so I think that’s the most im­por­tant thing, just be­ing ready men­tal­ly,” Hodge said.

The 32-year-old, who was re­called to the team af­ter miss­ing the pre­ced­ing Aus­tralian and In­di­an Test se­ries, scored an un­beat­en 55 dur­ing their lone warmup match ear­li­er this week against a New Zealand XI.

He said that while the team per­formed well dur­ing that two-day match, it gave them the chance to get ac­cli­ma­tised to the con­di­tions in New Zealand.

“I think most of the time we’ve been here is just about adapt­ing to the con­di­tions. Ob­vi­ous­ly, it’s dif­fer­ent from back in the Caribbean, the pitch­es have a lot more bounce and the fast bowlers have a lot more seam move­ment, so it was re­al­ly good to spend some time in the mid­dle.

“I think the guys stood up pret­ty well; the open­ers got some time in the mid­dle, and the fast bowlers got a run out, so it’s been pret­ty good,” Hodge said.

CMC