The West In­dies is ready and pumped up for the first Test against Aus­tralia in the up­com­ing two-Test se­ries.The first Test start­son Wednes­day(June 3) in Do­mini­ca.

West In­dies all rounder Ja­son Hold­er, a 23-year-old, says the hosts will be up for the fight against their more vaunt­ed op­po­nents." They're ranked No.2 in the world and that says a lot," Hold­er said."We're cur­rent­ly down at eight and we need to work our way up.

We have to give them the re­spect they're due but ob­vi­ous­ly we're com­ing to com­pete and win this se­ries."We'll be com­ing in quite hard at them. Look­ing to be ag­gres­sive and at least con­tin­ue the rich vein of form we had in the Eng­land se­ries.

"Hold­er al­so flat­bat­ted ques­tions about vet­er­an bats­man Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul's omis­sion from the squad. The 40-year-old's ex­clu­sion has been a hot top­ic across the Caribbean, with sev­er­al call­ing for Chan­der­paul to have a farewell tour to ho­n­our his two decade Test ca­reer.

"The ex­clu­sion of Shiv has caused a lot of talk," Hold­er said. "That's be­yond me at this present time, my fo­cus right now is on crick­et. It's quite im­por­tant we put crick­et first and try to per­form well against Aus­tralia." (AAP)