Proteas fast bowler Lungi Ngidi wants to show off his new bag of tricks when they face the West Indies in the first Test at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground.
The first of two Tests starts tomorrow, with Ngidi convinced that bowlers’ skills will be tested to the max in the tricky Caribbean weather conditions.
The 25-year-old says: “The trickiest thing is the humidity and the heat – similar to Durban. But it’s also very windy. We’re trying to negotiate how we’re going to deal with it in the Test matches.”
Luckily for Ngidi he is equipped to deal with the change in conditions, having worked hard with bowling coach Charl Langeveldt on upskilling himself.
He says: “I’ve been working on a lot of different skills with Langes and they seem to be paying off.
“I’m really excited to execute my skill out in the middle. [I put in] a lot of hard work and hopefully it’s going to pay off.”
Of the wicket, he adds: “The wicket is on a bit of a mount, so it does put you off a bit in terms of your jump in your run-up. The outfield has been very slow, so batsmen are probably going to have to run hard.
“As bowlers, we are smiling about that. Also there’s been a bit of bounce, it’s different to what people thought it was going to be.
“The overhead conditions change every 30 minutes, one minute it rains, the next it’s scorching hot and the next windy.
“When it’s overcast, you can use it as much as you can with the swing, when it’s pretty hot you’ve got to exploit the bounce and when it’s windy you can try and use the swing as much as possible.”
Ngidi and his teammates kick off the tour against their hosts at 4pm tomorrow.