Batting alone can save WI

Only their batsmen can come to their rescue, so that whoever the bowlers might be, they can have some sort of target to bowl at. And if skipper Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul show anything like the form they exhibited in the second innings in Durban, where they scored a fine 160-run partnership in the face of enormous odds, that alone may be enough to put them back into the kind of mood which makes for a winning team.

But they will need backing from the rest of the team. Carl Hooper,although he was somewhat controversially dismissed in the second innings in Durban, will have to show more application. As for the rest, application is the ingredient that has been missing so far, although 19-year-old Darren Ganga showed some of it during his first innings in Durban.

Just what the team selection will be in the face of the yawning chasm which exists between the West Indies and South Africa is difficult to say, but the South Africans have no such problems.

With Lance Klusener back in shape and in the squad at the expense of off-spinner Pat Symcox, Hansie Cronje has another wicket-taker who is also capable of batting well enough to cope with whatever the West Indies may have up their bowling sleeves.

In addition, Klusener scored his only Test century at Newlands, so he has shown a predilection for batting on the strip.

Given the fact that the series is already won, and that the match is being played on his home ground, leg-spinner Paul Adams may be given a match, and the South Africanselectors have showed their hand in the affirmative action debate by appointing young western province star Ashwell Prince as 12th man.However, not even the harshest critic of affirmative action can suggest Prince’s position is not deserved. He should be in the senior side before too long on the strength of some very good batting in both four-day and one-day domestic cricket.

Teams

West Indies (from): Brian Lara (captain), Clayton Lambert, Philo Wallace, Junior Murray, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Darren Ganga, Carl Hooper, Ridley Jacobs, Curtly Ambrose, Franklyn Rose, Courtney Walsh, Stuart Williams, Nixon Mclean

South Africa (from): Hansie Cronje (captain), Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibs, Kacques Kallis, Darryll Cullinan, Jonty Rhodes, Shaun Pollock, Mark Boucher, Lance Klusener, Allan Donald, David Terbrugge, Paul Adams, Ashwell Prince. (12th man)