The big guns England's Kevin Pietersen (left) and West Indies' Chris Gayle.

OLD FOES West Indies and England begin their 32nd Test series on Wednesday at Sabina Park with the visitors appearing to hold a distinct edge in experience and skill.

Home-field advantage should provide little solace to the hosts either as England trounced the Windies 3-0 in a four-match series in their most recent Test trip to the Caribbean in 2003-04.

Coming off a soggy 0-0 Test stalemate against fellow cellar-dwellers New Zealand last month, Jamaican fast bowler Daren Powell said the side was ready to beat England in the coming series. He obviously saw something the average fan didn't in the Shaky Isles as the Windies never looked like beating the Kiwis in either rain-marred Test and both sides looked a class behind the rest of the Test world.

England, rated No. 5 in the standings, have hardly been in stellar form in recent times, losing their past two series to South Africa (at home 2-1) and India (away 1-0), but those opponents are definitely in the ascendancy and might just be the two best Test nations playing the game at the moment.

Hurl and hit

Pundits love to say the "ball is round" but, going into this four-Test series, it looks like England are going to be able to hurl and hit it better than the Windies.

While the Caribbean side relies too heavily on skipper Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and, to some extent, Ramnaresh Sarwan to build reasonable totals and the spasmodic talents of the likes of Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards to claim wickets, England have reliable, proven performers up and down their list.

Newly-appointed captain Andrew Strauss and fellow left-handed opener Alastair Cook set consistent platforms for the top and middle order to build upon. Ian Bell is a solid No. 3 who just needs to start converting 50s into hundreds and he is followed by the scintillating Kevin Pietersen, who should have been skipper for this tour but lost his job in a fall-out with coach Peter Moores, who also lost his work.

Filling out the middle order are enigmatic allrounder Andrew Flintoff and the steady Paul Collingwood, two 30-plus veterans, and hard-hitting, if inconsistent keeper, Matt Prior.

Attacking options

The visitors also have a wide variety of attacking options with the pace of Flintoff, Andrew Harmison and Chris Broad, complemented by the swing of James Anderson and left-armer Ryan Sidebottom, the left-arm spin of Monty Panesar, the offspin of Graeme Swann and the legspin of newcomer Adil Rashid to choose from.

In comparison, the Windies' stocks look considerably barer. Belligerent opener Gayle has hit a purple patch of form in recent months and averaged 101.66 in NZ and Chanderpaul (also 101 in NZ) has been his usual dogged self at the crease, but even when they score the team isn't winning. Sarwan was a disappointing non-factor in two New Zealand Tests and the contributions of Sewnarine Chattergoon, Xavier Marshall and 'keeper Denesh Ramdin with the bat were also negligible.

One bright spot was the form of Australian import Brendan Nash, who contributed two key half-centuries against NZ from his middle-order post.

Edwards led the bowlers during that tour with 11 wickets at 22.36 but his Jamaican strike partners, Taylor and Powell, could only manage that many scalps between them at a cost of 40.8 and 33.3 respectively.

The WI selectors' baffling rotating spinners policy saw tall left-armer Sulieman Benn claim all of one wicket for 103 in his only Test.

That sort of attack is not going rattle England if it couldn't even shake up the Kiwis.

The visitors have won the past four series against the West Indies and it makes grim reading: 3-1, 3-0, 4-0, 3-0. That script seems unlikely to change any time soon.

Feedback: tym.glaser@gleanerjm.com

February

Wed 4 - Sun 8:

1st Test - West Indies vs England

Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica

Fri 13 - Tues 17:

2nd Test - West Indies vs England

Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, North Sound, Antigua

Sat 21 - Sun 22:

Barbados Cricket Association President's XI vs England XI

Venue TBC, Barbados

Thurs 26 - Mon 2:

3rd Test - West Indies vs England

Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados

March

Fri 6 - Tues 10:

4th Test - West Indies vs England

Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad

Sat 14:

West Indies Players Association XI vs England XI

Venue TBC, Trinidad

Sun 15:

Only T20I - West Indies vs England

Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad

Fri 20:

1st ODI - West Indies vs England

Providence Stadium, Guyana

Sun 22:

2nd ODI - West Indies vs England

Providence Stadium, Guyana

Fri 27:

3rd ODI - West Indies vs England

Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados

Sun 29:

4th ODI - West Indies vs England

Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados

April

Fri 3:

5th ODI - West Indies vs England

Beausejour Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia