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Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from the Carribean

BARBADOS, Friday - Sri Lanka may have gained a morale-boosting 115-run win over a Shell Cricket Academy XI ahead of the Cable and Wireless one-day series against the West Indies starting at Bridgetown here tomorrow (Saturday), but the worrying factor was that apart from skipper Marvan Atapattu, none of the other batsmen were able to convert good starts into big scores.

Atapattu single-handedly held the innings together with an impeccable 99. On him and on former captain Sanath Jayasuriya (who was rested for the practice match) will rest Sri Lanka's chances of stopping the West Indies juggernaut from running them over.

The West Indians for so long at the receiving end of other countries after their heady success of the seventies and eighties, are quietly beginning to regroup and find a winning combination, which made them once the most feared team in the world.

They are fresh from beating Ricky Ponting's World Cup champion outfit in three consecutive one-day internationals after losing the first four of a series of seven.

Their success has been based on the outstanding form of hard-hitting opener Wavell Hinds who struck successive centuries to aggregate 352 runs from five innings to take the man of the series award. With the fast scoring Chris Gayle, Hinds formed a formidable opening combination, which gave West Indies the starts they needed to outplay the Aussies.

For Sri Lanka who are also in the stage of rebuilding their side to have a chance of stopping West Indies from continuing their winning sequence, they will need to get rid of Hinds and Gayle as early as possible. Failure to do so will mean disaster as the Aussies quite bitterly found out.

Atapattu said that West Indies start as the favourites because of the home conditions and the confidence they have gained in beating the Aussies in three matches at the end of the one-day series.

"It is better for us to start the series as underdogs. You never know with one-day cricket. No one can predict today which way a game will go," said Atapattu who will rely on the pace of Chaminda Vaas and Prabath Nissanka and the off-spin of Muttiah Muralitharan to contain the powerful West Indies batting line up.

But it is not the bowling that has been a worrying factor for the Sri Lankan captain since he took over the reins from Jayasuriya after the 2003 World Cup, but the batting which has been responsible for Sri Lanka failing to qualify for the final of two successive one-day tournaments, one of them at home for the first time in their history.

The West Indies will be looking forward to capitalising on Sri Lanka's recent failures to avenge their defeats in Sri Lanka and in the World Cup.

Skipper Brian Lara who is on a roll in the second phase as captain of his illustrious career, made the ominous remark that for the rest of the year his team will not lose a single Test. They have two against Sri Lanka with others in November and December against Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Lara's comments were uttered amidst the euphoria of West Indies pulling off a stunning three-wicket win over world champs Australia in the fourth and final Test played at Antigua to become the first team in 126 years of Test cricket to score as many as 418 runs in the fourth innings.

The Test series and the seven-match one-day series followed on similar lines with West Indies losing the first three Tests and winning the final one, and then losing the first four in the one-day series before turning it around to record three straight wins over the World Cup champions.

The West Indians are on a high no doubt and no team can gain confidence than beating a side like Australia who has dominated both types of cricket for the past four years.

What has been most remarkable about the West Indies victories is that they have thrown a handful of youngsters to the deep end, and they have come up trumps signalling to the world that there is a future for their cricket.

The West Indies average age is 24, the youngest ever they have put into the field with Lara, the oldest at 34. Omari Banks, an ice-cool tall and slim and tiny Anguilla's first Test cricketer is just 20. There is also Devon Smith, a small compact left-handed opener in the Roy Fredericks mould all-rounders David Bernard and Ryan Hurley and, fast bowler Darren Powell. All of them are in their early 20s.

Lara described the Antigua Test win as "the greatest cricketing experience I've had" ranking it above his world record Test score of 375 against England made on this ground nine years ago and above his unbeaten 153 that brought West Indies an unlikely win over Australia at Barbados in 1998-99 to tie the four Test series 2-all during his first tenure as captain.

Lara's first stint as captain when he took over from Courtney Walsh ended in disaster. He described it as 'modest success and devastating failure'. He took time off and considered retirement and had to consult a psychiatrist. The ICC one-day championship table indicates an evenly matched contest, but current form would suggest otherwise with West Indies (ranked 6th in the table) coming off three successive wins against Australia while Sri Lanka (4th) failed at home against Pakistan and New Zealand.

Hair v Muralitharan

New Zealand's popular umpire Bill Bowden will officiate as ICC umpire for the three one-day matches, the second of which will take place at the same venue on Sunday and the third at St Vincent on Wednesday.

Bowden will also stand with Australian Daryl Harper in the first Test at St Lucia from June 20-24 while controversial Australian umpire Darrel Hair and Zimbabwean Russell Tiffin will officiate the second Test at Jamaica from June 27-July 1. This will be the first time in eight years that Hair will be standing in a Test involving Sri Lanka.

The only other occasion was at Melbourne in December 1995 when he no-balled Muralitharan for throwing.

Since then Hair has officiated a VB Series match in Australia involving Sri Lanka and Muralitharan without any further incidence.

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