Dyson confident despite poor preparation

West Indies in England 2009

Bulletin by Shwe Wai

	Devon Smith's form is a concern for West Indies:46 runs from four innings

The West Indies coach John Dyson remains confident that his side will prove to be a challenge for England in the first Test at Lord's on Wednesday, despite a string of poor warm-up matches and the unavailability of key players.

West Indies have underperformed in the three warm-up matches, failing to reach 250 in three of four innings, and they were trounced by England Lions who bowled them out for 179 in their second innings at Derby. To compound West Indies' problems, they have been without key players: Fidel Edwards only arrived in the country today after his Indian Premier League stint, while their captain, Chris Gayle, has been given permission to extend his stay in South Africa to play for Kolkata Knight Riders.

Dyson, though, is certain West Indies "can perform at Lord's" on Wednesday and insisted that despite all the problems, England should be on their guard.

"We're a surprising lot and we bounce back from things," he told PA. "I just think back to the Caribbean a couple of months ago when everyone scored hundreds for England in the practice game before the first Test at St Kitts and got bowled out for 51 in the first Test.

"If you look at the guys who you would think would make the Test line-up, Shiv [Chanderpaul] has had a couple of good knocks, Lendl Simmons has had a couple of good knocks, [Brendan] Nash has done all right and Sarwan has had a couple of promising starts. It's a bit of a worry that Devon Smith or Dale Richards haven't had a start at the top of the order with the new ball so that's a bit of a concern, but there is still time before the first Test."

There is precious little time, however: Gayle will only have 48 hours to acclimatise to England's early summer, but Dyson was not unduly concerned.

"I've said all along with the IPL in conjunction with this tour, even if he was arriving as we expected that's not ideal," he said. "Chris handles a lot of pressure and has played some magnificent cricket over the past 12 months in all forms of the game and he seems to take these sort of things in his stride.