GROS ISLET, St Lu­cia – West In­dies’ near three-decade-long wait for a se­ries win over South Africa will not be bear­ing heav­i­ly on cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite’s mind when the two teams clash in the open­ing Test of the two-match se­ries at the Daren Sam­my Na­tion­al Sta­di­um on Thurs­day.

Brath­waite was not yet born when West In­dies beat the Pro­teas in a one-off Test in Bridgetown 29 years ago, in a match mark­ing the African na­tion’s re-ad­mis­sion to in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et.

Since then, West In­dies have gone sev­en se­ries against South Africa – in­clud­ing three in the Caribbean – with­out a sin­gle se­ries vic­to­ry, and have man­aged a mere two Test wins in the last 27 meet­ings be­tween the two sides.

Brath­waite, ap­point­ed full-time cap­tain ahead of the Sri Lan­ka se­ries in March, said in­stead of wor­ry­ing about the past, the side’s sin­gu­lar fo­cus would be on ex­tend­ing the dis­ci­pline which has seen them go un­beat­en this year in four Tests, and sim­ply let­ting re­sults “take care of them­selves”.

“For us as a team, since Jan­u­ary we have been do­ing cer­tain things [well] and ob­vi­ous­ly we still have to im­prove in those ar­eas but for us, it’s just to go out there and do the sim­ple things right,” Brath­waite told an on­line me­dia con­fer­ence.

“I think re­sults will take care of [them­selves]. I’ve not been one to look at [past re­sults]. We know South Africa will be chal­leng­ing – we know that as a team. But I think once we do the small things right, that’s what I like to fo­cus on, and then re­sults will take care of them­selves.”

He con­tin­ued: “For us, it is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the good things we start­ed from Jan­u­ary in Bangladesh.

“For me, it’s quite sim­ple – we’ve got to keep the same at­ti­tude we had and the [same] dis­ci­pline.

“As a team, you ob­vi­ous­ly want to bat well, you want to bowl well and you want to field well and I think as a team, once we keep the at­ti­tude as bowlers we’re stick­ing to the plans, as bat­ters pret­ty much the same thing, [suc­cess will come].

“For me, it’s a whole team ef­fort and for us, we just want to keep that stan­dard pret­ty high.”

Brath­waite will lead a side that sees four changes to the squad which fea­tured in the nil-all se­ries draw against the Sri Lankans.

Gone are the out-of-form left-hand­ed pair of John Camp­bell and Dar­ren Bra­vo, while speed­ster Shan­non Gabriel is in­jured and left-arm spin­ner Jomel War­ri­can has been dropped.

Shai Hope and Kier­an Pow­ell have both been re­called along with off-spin­ning all-rounder Ros­ton Chase, while se­lec­tors have gam­bled on un­capped teenaged pac­er Jay­den Seales, who is with­out a re­gion­al first-class game to his name.

Brath­waite said the changes in per­son­nel had not af­fect­ed the up­beat spir­it in the Windies camp and re­gard­less of the com­po­si­tion of the fi­nal XI, he ex­pect­ed to see a dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion of team plans.

“For sure I’m get­ting that same en­er­gy. The last three days has said a lot about us as a team. I thought the guys re­al­ly put in a lot of ef­fort at prac­tice and as I said be­fore, prepa­ra­tion is the key,” he stressed.

“I think the guys are ex­cit­ed about the se­ries. It will be a chal­leng­ing one but you can see it in the guys’ eyes, they’re ready to go.

“We have plans as a team and for me, it’s just to go out there and do them. We have dif­fer­ent plans for dif­fer­ent bats­men and it’s just about ex­e­cut­ing. I wouldn’t think too far ahead though about if [we will go hard at them] or what­ev­er.

“As a team, we have to stay dis­ci­plined with those plans, do the sim­ple things right and as a bowl­ing unit I think we will do a good job against South Africa’s bat­ting line­up.”

He con­tin­ued: “As a team, both as bat­ters and bowlers, we know what we have to do, whether we’ve played a hun­dred games or two games, and the guys are ready to go. As bats­men and bowlers, we know the job we have to do and we’ll go out there and give it a hun­dred per cent.

“We had a good se­ries against Sri Lan­ka. I don’t think pret­ty much [any­thing] will change but the de­ci­sion hasn’t yet been made re­gard­ing [team com­po­si­tion]. What­ev­er com­bi­na­tion we come up with, I’m quite con­fi­dent in it for sure.”

West In­dies start the se­ries sixth in the ICC Test rank­ings – one notch high­er than the Pro­teas – fol­low­ing a shock 2-0 se­ries vic­to­ry away to Bangladesh and then draw­ing with Sri Lan­ka at home.

SQUADS

WEST IN­DIES – Kraigg Brath­waite (cap­tain), Jer­maine Black­wood (vice cap­tain), Nkrumah Bon­ner, Ros­ton Chase, Rah­keem Corn­wall, Joshua Da Sil­va, Ja­son Hold­er, Shai Hope, Alzarri Joseph, Kyle May­ers, Kier­an Pow­ell, Ke­mar Roach, Jay­den Seales.

SOUTH AFRICA – Dean El­gar (cap­tain), Tem­ba Bavu­ma (vice cap­tain), Quin­ton de Kock, Sarel Er­wee, Beu­ran Hen­dricks, George Linde, Ke­shav Ma­haraj, Lun­gi Ngi­di, Aiden Markram, Wiaan Mul­der, An­rich Nort­je, Kee­gan Pe­ter­son , Kag­iso Raba­da, Rassie van der Dussen, Kyle Ver­reynne, Tabraiz Sham­si, Liza­ad Williams , Prenelan Sub­rayen, Mar­co Jansen.

(CMC)