Cricket: Supersub adjustment supershort

West Indian captain Shiv Chanderpaul practises this week at Eden Park. Picture / Kenny Rodger

West Indian captain Shiv Chanderpaul just shrugs his shoulders at the idea of it, being asked to familiarise himself with an experimental rule that has already been marked for the rubbish.

The man charged with leading the first West Indian team to play under the controversial substitution law, Chanderpaul learned yesterday that all his research and study will be in vain, as the ICC are planning an about-face next month.

The Supersub experiment will still apply during the West Indies' series against New Zealand starting in Wellington tomorrow tonight but will almost certainly be missing by the time India tours the Caribbean in May.

The prospect of schooling themselves up on the law and then discarding it immediately after the New Zealand tour will come as an unwelcome distraction for the West Indians, who are desperate to turn around their recent woes in both forms of the game.

Once the Calypso Kings, the present outfit have lost 15 of their past 17 completed ODIs and in the test arena they have been beaten in 12 of their past 15.

To make matters worse, the West Indies will head into tomorrow's contest having not played an ODI since last August and on a preparatory diet of only domestic cricket and net practice.

Chanderpaul said this week that he would defer judgment on the Supersub rule until he had more experience of it but admitted that the yawning hole in his team's ODI programme had left him playing catch-up in terms of information.

"We've been watching the recent one-dayers very closely and keeping a keen eye on all the games, and we've been able to pick up quite a bit," he said. "It [the supersub] has been around for a while now and most of us have played some cricket back in the Caribbean using those rules, so it won't be a complete novelty."

The West Indies have been under intense scrutiny during their downward spiral over the past decade, with publicity surrounding not only their on-field performances but also their administrative finances and player-contract negotiations.

No longer staffed by some of the genuine greats of world cricket, they crashed and burned in New Zealand six years ago, in a low-point that almost caused the retirement of the one jewel in their crown, Brian Lara.

Chanderpaul, the most senior batsman in the one-day squad now that Lara has decided to play in the test section of the tour only, said that the team were under no illusions about the size of their task but that preparing back home hadn't been a complete waste of time.

"First-class domestic cricket has been useful," he said. "As a batsman you keep your eye in and stay sharp, and as a bowler you tend to maintain rhythm and fitness, so I think it has been helpful - playing cricket always is."

New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming has enjoyed some watershed success against the West Indians, but he said this week that it would be business as usual tomorrow night and that no one in his side would dare take their opponents lightly.

Fleming's side whitewashed the 1999-2000 tourists in both the ODIs and tests and then scored a historic maiden test series win in the Caribbean in 2002.

Chanderpaul's counterpart said the West Indies were talented and unpredictable and were understandably anxious to turn around the recent record, factors that would make them committed and dangerous throughout the tour.

"We know enough about them to realise that they run hot and cold," he said. "When they're hot they can be pretty deadly, and when they're not, they can be put away quite easily, so it's up to us to create an environment that makes it tough for them.

"They've got some character, they've got some good players and they've got some genuine experience. I think Dan [Vettori] said that we're happy to accept the favouritism tag but that we're realistic about what we need to do."

As for the West Indians playing under the experimental Supersub and Powerplay rules for the first time, Fleming was convinced that the change could complicate life for the tourists.

"In some areas it will make things difficult and particularly in regard to captaincy - there are some things you really need to explore in order to get it right. There's a bit of trial and error involved with all new concepts," he said. "I guess they would've watched a lot of cricket and studied what other teams and captains have done, and they're probably just going to apply it that way. But there are some adjustments involved, and I'll be interested to see how they play it."

Fleming said his squad were well informed on most of the West Indies party but conceded the dossier on some of the less-familiar players was comparatively thin and needed to be addressed.

"Some of their players weren't even in Australia so our research tasks have been a bit more demanding, but we'll pick up information as we go," he said.

"We know enough about their senior players - and others like Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin. We're confident about how we're preparing, but I guess there is an element of surprise involved."