Grassy pitch poses challenge to India

Sabina Park has produced a wide variety of pitches over the years – including one so dangerous the 1998 Test against England had to be abandoned in the 10th over.

It has again served up something new for the fifth, final and decisive Test between the West Indies and India starting today.

"I've never, ever seen a surface at Sabina with as much grass as this," Michael Holding, who became one of the game's great fast bowlers from his early beginnings there, said yesterday.

It has always been bare and beige in colour and used to be so shiny as to reflect the batsman's image. It is now as if Yul Brynner had suddenly sprouted green hair.

The change is clearly to exploit India's established aversion to fast bowling, already exposed in their all-out first innings 102 on a bouncy pitch, even against an inexperienced West Indies attack, that led to their defeat in the third Test.

Victory would give India their first overseas series triumph in eight years – and their first outside the sub-continent in 16. It would also send the West Indies sliding further down the Test standings.

Holding explained the grass was "smooth and even" and said he expected the pitch to play well. "But I do feel it will give the fast bowlers something from ball one to the end of the match," he said.

There is little to choose between two evenly matched teams, strong in middle order batting, limited in bowling. The much-touted confrontation between Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara, the two premier batsmen of the day, has failed to materialise while others have stolen the spotlight.

After starting with 79 and 117, Tendulkar's last four innings have read like a telephone dialling code: 0, 8, 0 and 0. Lara averages 30.4.

It is an ideal moment for them to show their true colours. For the time being, the colour that is occupying the minds of both teams is the green of the pitch.

Meanwhile, the India leg-spinner Anil Kumble was released from hospital yesterday, a day after undergoing surgery to mend the fractured jaw he suffered in the fourth Test last week.

Kumble, 31, was hit on his jaw by a rising delivery from paceman Mervyn Dillon on Saturday's second day of the Test in Antigua and forced to quit the tour. Kumble, nominated recently by Wisden as India's best ever cricketer, is now expected to be available for India's tour of England starting on 18 June.

India (from): S Ganguly (captain), Wasim Jaffer, S S Das, S B Banger, R Dravid, S R Tendulkar, V V S Laxman, A Ratra, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, J Srinath, A Nehra.

West Indies (from): C L Hooper (captain), C H Gayle, W W Hinds, R R Sarwan, B C Lara, S Chanderpaul, R D Jacobs, M Dillon, P T Collins, A Sanford, C E Cuffy, D Ramnarine and R R Hinds.

Umpires: D R Shepherd (England), R B Tiffin (Zimbabwe).

Match referee: R S Madugalle (Sri Lanka).