CHAT­TOGRAM, Bangladesh – West In­dies head coach Phil Sim­mons be­lieves the chal­leng­ing con­di­tions for the two-Test se­ries here next month will be an im­por­tant test of play­ers’ met­tle as much as their skill.

The Caribbean side take on Bangladesh in match­es in the coastal south­east­ern city and in the coun­try’s cap­i­tal, Dha­ka, in con­di­tions ex­pect­ed to favour the hosts’ spin at­tack.

And with the se­ries al­so be­ing played amid the on­go­ing glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Sim­mons said play­ers would def­i­nite­ly ben­e­fit from the over­all ex­pe­ri­ence.

“To each play­er it will mean a lot,” Sim­mons said ahead of the se­ries set to bowl off on Feb­ru­ary 3.

“Play­ing in these con­di­tions, play­ing in the en­vi­ron­ment we’re in and every­thing, you have to be strong.

“You have to be much stronger than just play­ing a crick­et match so you will see who are the strong ones and you will see who leads from the front.”

The Test squad, like the One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al unit, is miss­ing sev­er­al play­ers fol­low­ing the de­ci­sion by sev­er­al first-team­ers to de­cline se­lec­tion for the tour due to COVID-19 con­cerns here.

Cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er, along with Dar­ren Bra­vo, Shamarh Brooks, Ros­ton Chase and Shim­ron Het­my­er, are all miss­ing while wick­et­keep­er Shane Dowrich al­so opt­ed out of the tour for per­son­al rea­sons.

Se­lec­tors were forced to in­clude four un­capped play­ers – Nkrumah Bon­ner, Kyle May­ers, Kavem Hodge and Shayne Mose­ley – and have re­called left-arm spin­ner Veerasam­my Per­maul six years af­ter he played his last Test.

A four-day tour match has been sched­uled to start Thurs­day and Sim­mons said this would be used to as­sess play­ers’ state of readi­ness.

“They’ve been work­ing hard. Ex­cept the five with the ODI team, the oth­er 10 have been work­ing re­al­ly hard on their game so it will be good to see them in the prac­tice game and see where they’re at,” he not­ed.

“There are a few new guys here [so] we’re go­ing to have a few more caps al­so so let’s see who takes up the chal­lenge and who comes out best in the two Test match­es here.”

West In­dies, who be­ing led by sea­soned open­er Kraigg Brath­waite, face Bangladesh in the sec­ond Test start­ing Feb­ru­ary 11.

On their last Test tour here three years ago, West In­dies lost both match­es heav­i­ly in­side three days.

CMC