Seeking a change in fortunes, the West Indies have included all four of their new players for the first of the seven One-day Internationals against South Africa at the Wanderers here today.
The two limited-overs allrounders of contrasting experience, the left-handed Keith Arthurton, with 91 previous matches behind him, and the right-handed Keith Semple, with one, will fill the middle-order spots of Nos. 6 and 7, left-arm spinner Neil McGarrell is preferred to leg-spinner Rawl Lewis and Reon King is chosen along with the only other remaining fast bowlers, Curtly Ambrose and Nixon McLean.
The team management's request for Merv Dillon to be retained as the fourth fast bowler was finally denied by the Board yesterday morning, keeping the squad to its original 15.
The episode proved traumatic for Dillon. He was packed and about to leave for the airport on Wednesday when he was advised to stay as efforts were being made to have him remain. He was then called again yesterday and told he would have to go.
It was completely in keeping with the confusion that has bedeviled the tour even before it started.
With Stuart Williams and Clayton Lambert both dispatched back home and the justifiable reluctance to subject Daren Ganga to another torturous examination to follow the one he had in the Test, Shivnarine Chanderpaul has been given the job to open with Philo Wallace.
It is a position to which Chanderpaul is used in the abbreviated form of the game, having scored his one hundred there, 109 not out against India at Kensington Oval in 1997.
It means captain Brian Lara will revert to No.3 which the persistent loss of early wickets and the threat of Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock made him desert in the Tests. The absence of the injured Donald who accounted for him five times in his 10 Test innings could have been the influencing factor in the decision. The West Indies will have to overcome not only opponents whose quality fielding makes them even more formidable in the limited-overs game than in the Tests but an inferiority complex that became increasingly more evident throughout the past two months.
The addition of the four players not involved in that debacle should be an advantage. So should the speed, accuracy and sure-handedness of Arthurton and McGarrell in the strategic fielding positions within the field restricting area.
Their keenness has brought a new intensity to the practice sessions although they will clearly be short of match practice in South African conditions. Unlike England and Sri Lanka in Australia, whose specialist teams prepared for the current World Series tournament with warm-up matches, the new West Indians have had to make do with workouts in the nets.
The South Africans start with the confidence not only of the Test series whitewash behind him but also their triumphs in the Commonwealth Games, when a makeshift team defeated full strength Australia in the final, and in the Wills International Cup in Bangladesh in October when they beat the West Indies in the final.
While the 17 from whom they will select include all those who played in Bangladesh as well as Pollock and Lance Klusener, who didn't, the West Indies have only seven of those who lost the final by four wickets. Pollock's return is matched by that of Curtly Ambrose who also missed the Bangladesh tournament.
Ambrose, back in action for the first time since he strained a hamstring muscle in the Fourth Test just over two weeks ago, brings the vast experience of 151 ODIs to a team whose bowling is short on the commodity. It does nothing to lift the standard of the fielding in which his fellow fast bowlers, McLean and King, are the most vulnerable links.
The ground has been sold out to its 20,000 capacity for more than a week for what is the first of the four day-night matches to be played under floodlights. The other three are on weekends and will be played during the day and all are expected to have full houses, in spite of the obvious plight of the West Indies team at present.
Prompted by political pressure for the inclusion of more non-white players in the South Africa, two black fast bowlers of differing ages have been chosen in South Africa's squad of 17. But neither teenaged fast bowler Victor Mptisang of Free State nor 31-year-old Henry Williams of Boland, who both played against the West Indies in earlier tour matches, is expected to be included until later in the series.
The Teams:
West Indies: Brian Lara (Capt), Philo Wallace, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Carl Hooper, Keith Arthurton, Keith Semple, Ridley Jacobs, Nixon McLean, Neil McGarrell, Curtly Ambrose and Reon King.
South Africa (from): Hansie Cronje (Capt), Gary Kirsten, Mike Rindel, Daryll Cullinan, Jacques Kallis, Jonty Rhodes, Herschelle Gibbs, Shaun Pollock, Mark Boucher, Lance Klusener, Pat Symcox, Steve Elsworthy, Nick Boje, Dale Benkenstein, Andrew Hall, Victor Mpitsang and Henry Williams.