In pursuit of a series-levelling Test victory, there's no other Caribbean ground the West Indies cricketers would prefer to play India on than the Kensington Oval.

The home side has won six of its seven Tests against India at the Barbados venue and both One-Day Internationals played there. In addition, Barbadian national teams have won three of five matches against Indian teams there.

Of course, India will be returning to the arena with nightmarish memories of their 1997 Test defeat. They failed to chase 120 for victory and capitulated for just 81. This time they lead the five-Test series 1-0.

Given all this and the general evenness of the series thus far, West Indies coach Roger Harper believes his team has an excellent chance of stretching its Test record against the Indians in Barbados to seven out of eight with a win in the third Test starting today. However, the West Indies must do the work, he told the Royal Gazette yesterday.

"I am confident we can still win this series. There are three Tests left and the West Indies team has a very good record here in Barbados. That doesn't automatically mean we're going to win. We have to do the basic things and do them right.

"I don't think we have to do much differently than we have been doing but we have to execute our plan better," he said.

By explanation, he noted that, during the first session of play in the second Test in Trinidad, the West Indies did not exploit the new ball to its fullest. Had they done so, he pointed out, India would have been restricted to a much smaller total. Still Harper credited what he termed "an inexperienced attack" for showing they have the arsenal to bowl Sachin Tendulkar and company out twice - something some fans doubted.

"We can improve but it's a young attack - the most senior bowler has 20-something Tests to his name - and I think it they will get better as they gain more experience but I think they can get the job done.

"From a batting perspective, we need to convert our starts into bigger totals. If we can get batsmen converting 40s and 50s into hundreds, the team will get bigger totals and we will be able to put more pressure on India when they bat. It sounds simple but we have to execute it."

The coach acknowledged his team must address it's problem of faltering in winning situations as they did for the second year straight at Queen's Park in Trinidad.

"The pressure of the last innings is something that has troubled us and we must deal with it better. Certainly going into the last day needing 180-odd runs with eight wickets in hand and two of the best players in the world at the crease (Carl Hooper and Brian Lara), we felt very confident we could win and we should have but we came up short. We know where we fell down and what we have to do."

Despite the statistics, Indian captain Saurav Ganguly is confident of a reversal of fortune, noting that in 1997 "most of our players were injured".

"We have a much better bowling line-up now," he added.

Once again his two main dilemmas appear to be whether to play leg-break bowler Anil Kumble or off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who replaced Kumble in Trinidad, and his opening batsmen. In the latter instance, Wasim Jaffer has been chosen to partner Shiv Sundar Das at the top of the innnings - Das' third partner in as many Tests.

Uncannily, the West Indies chose not to settle on a final XI before this morning as they usually do in the Selectors' meeting which was held yesterday afternoon. They decided to consider bowling options a bit longer, though captain Carl Hooper earlier indicated he would "be inclined to go with four seamers" on the region's fastest wicket.

The West Indies have Mervyn Dillon, Adam Sanford, Cameron Cuffy and Pedro Collins, who was recalled in place of Marlon Black, as their four seamers with leg-break bowler Dinanath Ramnarine as the lone spinner. Ridley Jacobs has returned to wicket-keeping duties after a two-match drop in favour of Junior Murray.

One player who will definitely be hoping all goes his and the West Indies' way in this Test is ace batsman Brian Lara who led the West Indies to victory in 1997 in Barbados but who has had a mediocre start to this series. As he celebrates his 33rd birthday today he has already declared the best gift possible would be a win for the team - and a century for himself.