SINGLE AGENDA: Ganguly leads a team which hasn't won in the Caribbean since 1971

Easy for Sir Viv to say. When the West Indies played their best cricket, no one else dared bark. Richards took part in 35 Test victories overseas and played in a team that once went 10 years losing only eight Test matches. In toto. Home and away. Sir Viv should know.

But who shredded the script? How come nervous travellers India-they've won only 16 away Test matches in 70 years-have now stepped into Sir Viv's borders for five Tests and find themselves anointed favourites? Brian Lara, Caribbean cricket's answer to Bobby Fischer, has remarked he is "quietly fearful" of the Indians.

Instead of a triumphant fist-pump, a quick double take is recommended. Sourav Ganguly and his weary men have, unfortunately, not yet turned into ferocious bad dogs. It is the West Indies who are in disarray. India happen to be visiting. It's the synchronicity which has every expert proclaiming that this is India's best chance to win an away series outside the subcontinent since England, 1986.

THE FAST ONE: Srinath leads India's best attack in years

Says former captain Dilip Vengsarkar, who was the best performer of the 1986 series and led the Indians through a shell-shock of a West Indian tour in 1989: "This must possibly be the weakest West Indian team ever. They don't have experience in the bowling, don't have the class. This is our best opportunity ever."

Flip the coin over and it looks a little different. What is being tested is not West Indies' strength at home-their powers are fading but they have lost only three series in the islands in the past 30 years-but rather India's ability to win abroad. In 1992, a line-up that contained Kapil Dev, Mohammed Azharuddin, Ravi Shastri, Sachin Tendulkar, Sanjay Manjrekar, Manoj Prabhakar, Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath couldn't beat Zimbabwe in Harare. Six years later, an Indian eleven including Azhar, Navjot Sidhu, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Nayan Mongia, Srinath and Kumble actually lost a Test at the same wretched place. The opposition was Zimbabwe, hardly classy world-beaters.

MAINSTAYS: The slowing wickets should favour Tendulkar (left) and Dravid

India's away record remains a hurdle, a handicap, a heartache and a headache that nothing-no home remedies like Tendulkar centuries, Kumble five-fers (five-wicket hauls), Harbhajan hat-tricks or Gangulyan lofted sixes-can cure. It will only be cured when the jinx is broken.

When Srinath-who pulled out of the 1996 tour due to a shoulder injury-talks about the West Indies today he could be an impatient commuter sprinting for a train, "There is not much time. The bottom line is I have won nothing abroad. We need to make sure that we do." A veteran of two West Indies tours, Ravi Shastri says emphatically, "I think this is the first time we have the attack to take 20 wickets since 1971." Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Tinu Yohannan are hardly the Beastie Boys, but they are not the Marx Brothers either. On wickets which are far slower than what Shastri and Co faced in the 1980s, the presence of Kumble and Harbhajan Singh should in theory give the Indian attack both bark and bite.

THE SLOW STUFF: The spin of Kumble (right) and Harbhajan will test the Windies

Manjrekar too insists, "We should be looking at winning in the West Indies-that's the only result we should be satisfied with." India rarely travels with such gung-ho ambition. As a player Shastri watched the body language of teammates shrink into silence when faced with lively wickets and hostile quick bowling in the Caribbean. "You could tell from the guys' faces who was s******g bricks, who wanted to play and who didn't for fear of being exposed." A player on the 1996 West Indies tour remembers what he was told even before landing: "Seniors told juniors all the usual stuff, 'Oh, in Jamaica it will keep flying'. That's nonsense, you get true wickets there. Some are even slower than India. Winning overseas is a mental block."

It's a block many in Ganguly's team believe they are chipping away at. They cling to the memory of two wins outside India last year in Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. "It's a confidence thing," skipper Ganguly told India Today. "We came back in Lanka after losing the first Test and squared the series with a depleted side." India were the last team to beat Sri Lanka at home before Sanath Jayasuriya's men won nine straight Tests in a row.

Sports

WICKET TO WICKET Bourda, Guyana Once the best batting wicket in the Caribbean, the worn surface offers inconsistent bounce and pace. Ist Test Match: April 11 to 15 Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad The largest Caribbean ground has a "result" wicket, which helps pace and spin. Batting first is a big plus. 2nd Test Match: April 19 to 23 4th ODI: June 1 5th ODI: June 2 Kensington Oval, Barbados A wicket of consistent bounce that has slowed down over the years but still sees big hundreds scored. 3rd Test Match: May 2 to 6 3rd ODI: May 29 Antigua Recreation, Antigua Faster bowlers are expected to thrive early on here but the wicket then settles down for the batsmen. 4th Test Match: May 10 to 14 Sabina Park, Jamaica A "dangerous" pitch led to a match being abandoned in 1998 here. The relaid wicket is a good one to bat on. 5th Test Match: May 18 to 22 Ist ODI: May 25 2nd ODI: May 26

The Indians are studying videotapes of the Windies' recent series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The more Net-savvy have trawled through scoresheets of the Windies' home games. They have discovered that scoring rates in the Caribbean have fallen: from an average of 3.3/ 3.4 runs scored per over to 2.3/ 2.4 runs per over in the past five years. India vice-captain Rahul Dravid translates the numbers into match-day scenarios, "It's going to be a game of patience," he told India Today. "The key for the batsmen would be to try to get in on those wickets and be patient." V.V.S. Laxman, who opened for the Indians on the 1996 tour, says, "The wickets there are similar to Indian wickets-you have to back yourself, occupy the crease and get the runs."

Occupation of the crease. Patience. Ho hum. Not quite our flash middle-order's morning cuppa. The tour dangles many individual carrots: Captain Ganguly (and for that matter the unflash Dravid) have not scored a Test century overseas for three years, Tendulkar doesn't have one in the West Indies and Laxman hasn't crossed the three-figure mark since the Big One in Kolkata. Ganguly tosses aside the carrots and looks at the entire plot, "All of us need to score runs, but runs that are going to help India win the series. Those runs, scored under pressure, have more value."

On tour, Indian teams have rarely valued their chances or put a high-enough prices on their wickets. They have tossed opportunities aside like cheap trinkets. In 1989, current selector and ex-coach Madan Lal watched in horror as the Indian batsmen failed to chase 120 in Barbados. It would have given India the series, but Lal remembers their chance came in the earlier Test in Trinidad. He confesses "we didn't push hard enough" to put up a good lead and let West Indies save Trinidad.

Neither Lal nor any survivor of that tour will comment on how many of the 10 wickets that fell on the final day in Barbados were to genuine panic and how many were deliberately thrown away. "Let's not go there," says one player. "All we needed were two partnerships, we went numb," says another. The Nasty Nineties are, on available evidence, behind the team but the habit of blowing chances overseas is not. In Harare (again) last year an hour's poor batting let Zimbabwe back in the second Test and helped them level the series 1-1. In Sri Lanka, a few months later, the Indian batting threw away good starts in Colombo twice and let the Lankans take the series 2-1. India even scored 372 on the first day of the Test series against South Africa and went on to lose the game. Lal says sternly, "You have to use your skill at the right time."

The tour of the West Indies, old timers say, is a chance for individual players to "explore" themselves and to come to terms with what they are capable of. One of those is Harbhajan Singh whose battle against the West Indian batting and its left-handers is expected to be decisive. He has a particularly good record against lefties and remarks, "I'm hoping when I come back, it will be better." What about the most la guid lefty of them all-Prince Brian-who single-handedly denied the Australians a series victory on their 1999 tour? Ganguly steps in, "Lara is quality, but for a batsman all you need is one good ball. We've got to be disciplined and make sure he gets enough of those."

The Indians have travelled away from home in hope and anticipation before and the chorus on their departure has remained the same: opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. But like the old song says, it ain't no chance if you don't take it.