St John's–Test cap­tain De­nesh Ramdin ex­ud­ed con­fi­dence ahead of his side's three-match se­ries against Eng­land that starts on Mon­day. Ramdin who was a part of the West In­dies squad that beat Eng­land at home in 2009 seemed hap­py with his team's prepa­ra­tions for the se­ries.

"The last two days have been good, the prepa­ra­tion. Lot of bat­ting, bowl­ing and field­ing, try­ing to get all de­part­ments of our game up to scratch. Some of the guys were play­ing First-Class crick­et while some of us came back from the World Cup," he said. "New coach Phil Sim­mons is telling us to en­joy what­ev­er we're do­ing. So far we've been do­ing good work. The young and se­nior play­ers have fit­ted in well which is good."

The 30-year-old who has rep­re­sent­ed West In­dies in 64 Tests praised the com­mit­ment of the younger play­ers in the squad who he felt added a spark in­to the team's work ethics.

Ramdin al­so hopes that the new play­ers will learn a lot from the se­nior play­ers which in turn will help them to im­prove their skills. "They come with a lot of en­er­gy and en­thu­si­asm. They've al­ways giv­en a 100 per­cent so far which is good. A young bunch of guys they are and en­joy­able so far," he added.

"Hope­ful­ly they can learn from this even if not se­lect­ed when they go back to their ter­ri­to­ries and im­prove to be­come bet­ter play­ers for their coun­try."

Apart from the young­sters, Ramdin al­so rel­ished the pres­ence of ever­green vet­er­an Shiv Chan­der­paul who has 161 Test match ap­pear­ances to his name.

The 40-year-old Chan­der­paul who has ac­cu­mu­lat­ed 11775 runs at a healthy av­er­age of 52.33 needs an­oth­er 179 runs to be­come West In­dies' lead­ing run-scor­er in Tests sur­pass­ing Bri­an Lara.

"Yeah, his ex­pe­ri­ence is sec­ond to none...all those match­es that he has played at in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. I am sure that he'll go on to make the most runs for West In­dies in Test match­es," Ramdin said. "I'm sure that's his goal but at the same time his ex­pe­ri­ence is cru­cial in the mid­dle or­der. When­ev­er he gets a 100 or a 70, the guys who bat with him get part­ner­ships which will help us get a big to­tal that will give us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to win match­es."

Ramdin re­flect­ed on his team's suc­cess against Eng­land dur­ing the lat­ter's pre­vi­ous vis­it in 2009 which was a five-match Test se­ries that end­ed 1-0 in fa­vor of West In­dies.

While sa­vor­ing the mo­ments of the past, Ramdi­nof re­peat­ing the feat this time around too.

"Last time Eng­land were here, we won 1-0 in that se­ries. It was a very hard fought se­ries. Hope­ful­ly we can get the things go­ing in this se­ries as well."

Just like the se­ries in 2009 which pro­duced one re­sult in five match­es, Ramdin ex­pects the three-match se­ries al­so to be a close­ly fought one. Ramdin ad­mits that the se­ries will be a tough one for the bowlers with the pitch­es across the Caribbean be­ing con­sid­er­ably flat­ter and slow­er which he feels will al­so test the tem­pera­ment of bats­men.

De­spite the chal­lenges for bowlers, Ramdin backed his bowlers to ex­ploit the fa­mil­iar home con­di­tions in the se­ries.

"It's go­ing to be a tough grind. This se­ries is go­ing to be set up by big scores. But I be­lieve that a bit of ag­gres­sive bowl­ing where a cou­ple of wick­ets are tak­en can change the match for us. It can go ei­ther way but hope it is on our side," he said.

"Jerome Tay­lor, Ke­mar Roach, spin­ners Benn, Bishoo, all these guys have ex­pe­ri­ence bowl­ing in these con­di­tions. Hope­ful­ly they can ex­ploit the con­di­tions and do well."

The 30-year-old felt that the home ad­van­tage fac­tor will be an area that West In­dies can ex­ploit against an Eng­land out­fit used to live­ly swing­ing pitch­es.

Ramdin stat­ed that the fa­mil­iar­i­ty in home con­di­tions and pitch­es will give his bowlers an ad­van­tage in what is ex­pect­ed to be a high-scor­ing se­ries.

"Of course when you go away and play against the op­po­si­tion, they use their con­di­tions and ex­ploit it quite well.

"So I can't why our bowlers can­not do it when we're at home."

Ramdin has a good record against Eng­land in Tests hav­ing com­piled two of his four cen­turies against them.

Apart from the two cen­turies, he al­so had three half-cen­turies and his bril­liant knock of 166 against Eng­land in 2009 still hap­pens to be his high­est Test score.

"I have two cen­turies against the op­po­si­tion and a cou­ple of half-cen­turies. I'm look­ing for­ward to get­ting stuck in­to this."

Af­ter the three Tests against Eng­land, West In­dies are slat­ed to host Aus­tralia in June for a two-match Test se­ries.