Graeme Smith believes the series that starts with the first of four Tests at the Wanderers ground here tomorrow will be mainly a battle between his team's bowling and the West Indies batting.

And the 22-year-old left-handed opener, who took over as captain from Shaun Pollock following South Africa's humiliating first round elimination in the World Cup in March, expects a much tighter contest than South Africa's 5-0 clean sweep in the previous series between the teams here in 1998-99.

"Their batsmen are the type who like to score quickly and hit a lot of boundaries," Smith said as he prepared for his first home series at the helm, "It's a case of real stand and deliver."

With Alan Donald, the fast bowler who is South Africa's leading Test wicket-taker with 330, now retired, and Pollock slower, if no less accurate, than in his prime, Smith accepted that the bowling is not as strong as it was in the clean sweep of five years ago or the 2001 series in the Caribbean that South Africa won 2-1.

"Hopefully, this will be a series in which guys will put up their hands and make a mark on South African cricket," he said.

"It's important for us to be consistent and know what it is we want to do and do that very well," he added. "We must build pressure like we did in England (in last summer's drawn series) and hit our areas similar to what Shaun does."

Pollock, who has taken 310 wickets in 76 Tests, and Makhaya Ntini, with 127 in 36 Tests, spearhead an attack in which two untested fast bowlers have been chosen.

Andre Nel, tall and quick, toured the Caribbean in 2001 but has only had four Tests. Garnet Kruger, a strongly built, 26-year-old, has been chosen for the first time.

Jacques Kallis, one of the most effective all-rounders in the contemporary game, has bowled less and less of late but he and Andrew Hall, another belligerent all-rounder, lend support at brisk medium-pace.

"Our basics have to be perfect all the time," Smith said. "We have to play as we did in the last three one-day internationals in Pakistan (in October) when we did the basics perfectly and won all three to clinch the series."

Smith said the circumstances now are in sharp contrast to what they were when the West Indies arrived last time after a week-long players' strike while intransit through London's Heathrow Airport.

"They have had some time together as a team in Zimbabwe, they learned a little more about each other and are definitely better prepared than they were the last time they came here," was the way he assessed his opposition.

He did not regard playing at home as a necessary advantage, although his opinion clearly did not take into account the West Indies' abysmal away record.

"There'll be a lot of pressure at home, mainly with regard to the public's expectations," he said. "You're dealing with a different kind of pressure on tour."

Smith noted the differences between the 1998-98 team under the late Hansie Cronje and the one he leads out tomorrow.

"The South African side in that series was very stable and they really knew each other very well," he said. "We've got a few young guys who are trying to find their feet in the team."

Ntini, the fastest of the South African bowlers, was then 21 and just emerging to eventually be the first black player from the development programme to represent South Africa.

He had a modest record in the five Tests in the Caribbean in 2001 but takes understandable delight in proclaiming that he dismissed Brian Lara four times, three in the Tests, one in a one-day international.

"I'm aware that they like to attack," he said of the West Indies batsmen. "I've watched them on television (in the recent series in Zimbabwe and I'm ready for them."

With Lara and four others - Wavell Hinds, Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ridley Jacobs - in the top seven in the order, Ntini's angled deliveries from over the wicket enhance his threat.

"I had to learn to bowl to left-handers," Ntini said. "It's a very small margin of adjustment. It's about concentrating so that my head and my balance are right so I can bowl the right channels."