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Centurion: The West Indies will trade its off-field problems for a tough on-field cricket examination when it meets No 1-ranked South Africa in first Test starting Wednesday.
It will be the team's first action since its tour of India was abandoned in October because of a pay dispute. The repercussions of that remain unresolved and a damages claim from the Board of Control for Cricket in India hangs over the WICB.
A young West Indies side can expect little comfort against the world's best team at a venue where the hosts have won 14 of 19 Tests.
The Caribbean side will be without talismanic opening batsman Chris Gayle, whose longstanding back injury flared up in the last month when playing Twenty20 cricket for a South African franchise, and Darren Bravo, who opted out of the tour for personal reasons. The West Indies batting will lean on veteran Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Marlon Samuels, who was top run-scorer on the last tour of South Africa. He hit a double-century in a warm-up game last week.
There is more optimism about the bowling line-up, in which left-arm fast bowler Sheldon Cottrell - a private in the Jamaican Defense Force - has been added to a seam department that includes Kemar Roach, Shannon Gabriel and Jason Holder.
South Africa has played only three Tests since the retirement of iconic captain Graeme Smith in March and has not played the format since a one-off game in Zimbabwe in July.
This lack of Test cricket has created anxiety for coach Russell Domingo, even if, in July, South Africa claimed its first series win in Sri Lanka since 1993, under new captain Hashim Amla.
South Africa will be without middle-order batsman and part-time spinner Jean-Paul Duminy. This is likely to give left-hand batsman Stiaan van Zyl a long-awaited debut.
The opening pair of Alviro Petersen and Dean Elgar may be vulnerable against experienced West Indian fast bowlers Kemar Roach and Jerome Taylor, with Petersen not having made a century in 23 previous Test innings, which have yielded only three fifties, while Elgar is a relative newcomer to the Test opening role.
Teams from
South Africa: Hashim Amla (captain), Alviro Petersen, Dean Elgar, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers, Stiaan van Zyl, Quinton de Kock (wk), Robin Peterson or Kyle Abbott, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel.
West Indies: Denesh Ramdin (captain and wk), Kraigg Brathwaite, Devon Smith, Leon Johnson, Marlon Samuels, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Jermaine Blackwood, Jason Holder, Kemar Roach, Jerome Taylor, Sulieman Benn, Sheldon Cottrell, Assad Fudadin, Shannon Gabriel, Chadwick Walton (wk).
Match facts
December 17-21, 2014
Start time 1030 local (0830 GMT)
