NOT unexpectedly at the start of the annual rainy season, the weather is looming as a definite factor in the first Cable & Wireless Test between the West Indies and Sri Lanka that starts at the Beausejours Stadium in St. Lucia tomorrow.
Two days of intermittent showers, heaviest on Tuesday night and into yesterday morning, eliminated batting practice on damp pitches and confined the teams to fielding and physical training sessions on the stadium's outfield in the afternoon and to gym work.
The rain relented sufficiently yesterday afternoon for ground staff to continue pitch preparation and allow West Indies coach Gus Logie to make an initial assessment of conditions.
"There is definitely some moisture there and I would expect some help for the seamers," Logie said. "It's hard and brown with plenty of rolled-in grass but, with the rain that's been around, I'd expect the moisture to be retained."
As the interim coach, Logie is inexplicably not on the selection panel but will no doubt pass on his judgment to Sir Vivian Richards and his panel when they get together to decide on their final eleven tonight.
They have chosen four fast bowlers in the squad of 14 - Merv Dillon and Vasbert Drakes, who played in the preceding series against Australia, and Corey Collymore and the teenaged newcomer Jerome Taylor, who did not.
Captain Brian Lara has publicly, and repeatedly, stated his preference for a specialist spinner in any team he leads and he carried no more than three fast bowlers into the four Tests against the Australians.
Given 20-year-old off-spinner Omari Banks' all-round promise and impressive temperament in the last two of those matches, only more rain, and more moisture, could influence a reversion to the age-old West Indian practice of four fast bowlers.
The weather and pitch conditions will also interest the Sri Lankans.
Logie's Sri Lankan equivalent, interim coach Duleep Mendis, said after the three-day match against the President's XI in St.Vincent Monday that he and his fellow selectors were contemplating whether to play a seventh batsman or a third fast bowler.
In the circumstances, the latter option would seem the more attractive.
Chaminda Vaas, their high-class left-arm swinger with 212 wickets in his 66 Tests, and Prabath Nissanka, the tall, strong right-armer who bowled with genuine pace in his only appearance on tour in the first one-day international, are certain to share the new ball.
The one to support them would come from the tall, bald Dharshana Gamage, the nippy left-armer Thilan Thushara and the steady fast-medium outswinger Dinusha Fernando, none of whom has yet played a Test.
All bowled in the match against the President's XI but Thushara and Fernando struggled for rhythm, each delivering 11 no-balls.
With off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan once more likely to be employed for a high portion of their overs and further spin to be provided by Kumar Dharmasena (off-breaks) or Kaushal Lokuarachchi (quick leg-breaks and googlies), the Sri Lankan hierarchy might consider a third, inexperienced fast bowler redundant.
As far as Logie is concerned, his main task now is more mental than technical.
"We were a little bit tentative going into the first one-day match against new opposition," he said. "Since then, the confidence level has risen. We've got to know their strengths and their weaknesses and we were a lot more positive in the last two matches."
Logie said he was pleased the way the batsmen handled Muralitharan in the last two matches but acknowledged that he was a dangerous opponent.
"What we can't afford to do is pay all the attention to one man, whether a batsman or a bowler," he said. "They've got players who have to be respected and we've got to be ready for all of them."
Logie accepted that Andy Bichel in the Australian series was an example of someone who was not as highly rated as he should have been.
"There was Brett Lee and McGrath and Gillespie, who had better reputations and records, but Bichel kept popping up and taking key wickets at vital times," he said. "It's something we've always got to guard against".