CEN­TU­RI­ON–A young West In­dies side is em­bark­ing on a her­culean task of up­set­ting the world's best team, South Africa, as the first test be­gins here at Su­per­Sport Park in Cen­tu­ri­on to­day.

De­nesh Ramdin's out­fit, lan­guish­ing at num­ber eight in the test rank­ings, is tak­ing on the num­ber one ranked South Africans in a David and Go­liath clash, the first in a three-test se­ries.

The West In­dies, whose last win against South Africa was in the open­ing test in 2007/08 se­ries, are play­ing the home­side at a venue where they have won 14 of 19 tests.

"This would be a very chal­leng­ing se­ries for us," con­ced­ed Ramdin.

"South Africa has been do­ing some­thing very good to be at the top of the rank­ings. It is im­por­tant that we play con­sis­tent crick­et through­out."

The low­ly ranked Caribbean side, above Bangladesh and Zim­bab­we, in the ICC test rank­ings, is with­out open­ing bats­man Chris Gayle, whose back in­jury re­turned when play­ing Twen­ty20 crick­et in South Africa last month, and Dar­ren Bra­vo, who opt­ed out of the tour for per­son­al rea­sons.

Vet­er­an Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul and Mar­lon Samuels, who was top run scor­er on the last tour of South Africa and who hit a dou­ble-cen­tu­ry in the warm-up game, are ex­pect­ed to be key to the Windies scor­ing.

"Our bat­ting has not been up to scratch in the past cou­ple years," ad­mit­ted Ramdin.

"So it's im­por­tant that my­self, the Mar­lon Samuels, the Chan­der­paul and the se­nior guys put up our hands and the younger guys go along."

South Africa are wary of a West In­di­an bowl­ing line­up that in­cludes left-arm fast bowler Shel­don Cot­trell, Ke­mar Roach, Shan­non Gabriel and Ja­son Hold­er and coached by for­mer pac­er Curt­ly Am­brose.

Rook­ie pac­er Cot­trell is be­ing tipped to be a sur­prise el­e­ment for West In­dies af­ter re­cent spells in the WICB Pro­fes­sion­al Crick­et League and an ex­plo­sive five-wick­et burst in last week's three-day tour match.

"No one bowler can win a game for you, it takes a team. As long we play to­geth­er as a team, we will do well here," said Am­brose.

"The most im­por­tant thing is to main­tain your fo­cus. Even though the pitch is boun­cy, you have to put the ball in the right ar­eas con­sis­tent­ly. You won't see us do­ing any­thing out of the or­di­nary."

The sur­face at Cen­tu­ri­on is known to of­fer bounce and car­ry de­spite a sig­nif­i­cant amount of green grass be­ing stripped from the pitch on Mon­day.

At­mos­pher­ic con­di­tions will al­so favour fast bowlers and rain is fore­cast for every day of the match, ex­cept Sat­ur­day.

Still, both teams are con­sid­er­ing in­clud­ing a spin­ner in their line-up.

"It's the biggest de­ci­sion man­age­ment will have to make," said AB de Vil­liers said.

"Cen­tu­ri­on nor­mal­ly doesn't turn that much which makes you feel that you've maybe go with that ex­tra seam­er but with the team we are play­ing against, it might not be a bad idea to play a spin­ner."

The West In­dies clash against South Africa is their first in­ter­na­tion­al match since its tour of In­dia was aban­doned in Oc­to­ber be­cause of a pay dis­pute.

De­spite their high rank­ing sta­tus the South Africans have not writ­ten off their Caribbean op­po­nents and are con­cern about play­ers who they are un­fa­mil­iar with.

"Ramdin has ral­lied them quite nice­ly af­ter their re­cent trou­bles so they could be quite dif­fi­cult to beat," fast bowler Dale Steyn said.

"The wound­ed buf­fa­lo is al­ways the most dan­ger­ous. That could be the type of side we are play­ing against. They could come out fir­ing and play­ing the most de­ter­mined crick­et they have in a long time or they could come out as in­di­vid­u­als and quick­ly fold."

Hashim Am­la, who is cap­tain in a home se­ries for the first time since re­plac­ing icon­ic Graeme Smith in March, says Ramdin's men must not be tak­en light­ly.

"The West in­dies team are a good team," said Am­la, who at­tend­ed a joint news con­fer­ence with Ramdin.

"They have a lot of young faces and in­ex­pe­ri­enced guys but many teams have come here be­fore in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion and pro­vid­ed a very for­mi­da­ble chal­lenge. So we will have to be on top of our games."

First ball is 10.30 am dai­ly (4.30 am East­ern Caribbean Time).

CMC