@Cricket Tadka

Australia in West Indies 2012

Deonarine on probationary return - Gibson

Narsingh Deonarine's recall to the West Indies Test team to face Australia is a temporary solution to the absence of Marlon Samuels and has arrived despite continued reservations about his fitness, the coach Ottis Gibson has candidly admitted.

Deonarine acquitted himself well as a batsman in Australia in 2009-10, but after Gibson's 2010 appointment the left-hander was not offered a WICB contract due to poor fitness results. He has undergone a fresh round of testing ahead of the first Test of this series at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, and Gibson stated that Deonarine had to show visible improvement over the next three weeks.

 "He just needs to be himself," Gibson said. "I think sometimes one-day cricket lends itself to you having to go out in circumstances and play shots and maybe up the scoring rate or whatever's the case or consolidate when you've just lost a couple of wickets and stuff like that. Test cricket's very different, he goes out every day and starts over, [he should] just be himself and bat the way he batted, especially in India.

"He made a brilliant hundred in Bangladesh, but in India he was outstanding, and the Indians, from some of the fields that they set for him, it was clear they had obvious plans for him as well and he scored two Test hundreds. So he is somebody that we have a lot of confidence and belief in and somebody that will take us forward over the next couple of years.

"We're not worried about his form, we know what he's capable of and he tends to rise to the big occasion as well, so we're looking forward to seeing him bat over the next couple of weeks."