Ramnarine Back; Collymore May Replace Cuffy

It took the wrath of the injury gods to force Carl Hooper's hand.

When the decisive second Test against Pakistan starts in Dubai on Thursday, specialist spinner Dinanath Ramnarine will find a place in the final eleven after tour-ending injuries to Sherwyn Campbell and Marlon Samuels forced an abandonment of the risky strategy to play eight batsmen.

With no back-up batsmen to take Campbell's place, Hooper and the tour selection committee will turn to Ramnarine, the right-arm leggie from Trinidad and Tobago. News out of Sharjah also suggest Barbadian pacer Corey Collymore may take Cameron Cuffy's place in the final eleven.

The injury-prone Cuffy, who broke down during the Zimbabwe tour last year, is reportedly nursing a groin strain but his miserable first Test performance (3/153 from 54 overs) would certainly weigh against him even if he passes a last-minute fitness test.

Ramnarine, the most successful West Indies bowler in recent times -- 11 Test, 42 wickets (Avg. 28.73) -- will lend balance to a bowling attack that looked utterly mediocre in the first Test shellacking at the hands of the confident Pakistanis. In that match, the West Indies surrendered scores of 493 and 214/6 declared with two batsmen -- Yousuf Youhana and Rashid Latif -- helping themselves to big hundreds.

Samuels, the 21-year-old Jamaican who re-injured his right knee on the current tour, went under the surgeon's knife in Dubai Wednesday and will be out of action for at least six weeks while Campbell's broken digit will be bound in a cast for another seven days.

While the plan is for Campbell to be ready for the one-day series which starts on Valentine's Day, the selectors in the Caribbean are knocking heads to come up a replacement for Samuels. Candidates include Lincoln Roberts, the no-nonsense middle-order batsman from Trinidad and Tobago and Devon Smith, the 21-year-old who has been a bright spot in the Windward Islands Busta Cup success this year.

In two matches this year, Roberts has helped himself to 267 runs with two centuries (avg. 89.00) while Smith, a leftie with an array of shots, is averaging 86.00 from three innings (258 runs). Stuart Williams (289 runs/average 96.33), Runako Morton (294 runs/average 73.50), Leon Garrick (213 runs/average 71.00), Imran Jan (207 runs/average 69.00) and Courtney Browne (275 runs/average 68.75) would also be under consideration.

Windies XI (probable):

Carl Hooper (captain), Ridley Jacobs (vice-captain), Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga, Shiv Chanderpaul, Wavell Hinds, Ryan Hinds, Dinanath Ramnarine, Merv Dillon, Corey Collymore, Pedro Collins.