Mike Atherton admits the 1994 side humbled for 46 at the Queen's Park Oval was ''pretty green.''

These are also two words the England captain justifiably could use to describe the grassy pitch here in Port of Spain, which was cut on the morning before the second Test against the West Indies but still carried a verdant hue.

Thankfully, the surface is a world apart from the brown, cracked and corrugated rogue of Sabina Park which sickened West Indies cricket. This looks an ideal track for the quicker bowlers on a ground where the ball is prone to swing, giving Atherton a tough decision of whether to bat or bowl first if he calls correctly when rival skipper Brian Lara flips the coin.

Atherton lost the toss - and the Test - four years ago, but the England captain still draws satisfaction from that match, in which his side held the whip hand only to see a chance of victory snatched away by dropped catches and a magnificent spell of fast bowling from Curtly Ambrose (six for 22 in 7.5 overs).

''It was a green side. That group of players hadn't won any Test matches, and we got into a winning situation. They were 60 ahead with six wickets down. We spilled a couple of catches and they had a winning lead,'' said Atherton.

But England's last-gasp victory over Australia at The Oval last August has convinced Atherton that his men are now better prepared to cope with those kind of white-knuckle situations.

As far as the ground today is concerned, Atherton said: ''The pitch is fairly well grassed, an even surface. The groundsman says he's going to take off more grass.

''I've never had any doubt that it will last. The experience at Sabina Park was a one-off. I've played Tests in the Caribbean before and the pitches have been absolutely fine.''

England have played only nine days of cricket plus the never-to-be-forgotten 56 minutes at Sabina Park since arriving in the Caribbean on January 3, which cannot count as the best of build-ups to a series.

''We've been a long time without playing meaningful cricket and the players are itching to get on with the business end of the tour,'' said Atherton before his forty-eighth Test in charge. The Queen's Park Oval is a West Indies stronghold. They have not lost there for two decades and England are without a victory in Port of Spain for a quarter of a century.

West Indies (from): B C Lara (Trinidad, captain), S C Williams (Leeward Islands), S L Campbell (Barbados), S Chanderpaul (Guyana), C L Hooper (Guyana), J C Adams (Jamaica), D Williams (Trinidad), I R Bishop (Trinidad), C E L Ambrose (Leeward Islands), C A Walsh (Jamaica), F A Rose (Jamaica), K C G Benjamin (Leeward Islands), N A M McLean (Windward Islands).

England (probable): M A Atherton (Lancashire, captain), A J Stewart (Surrey), J P Crawley (Lancashire), N Hussain (Essex), G P Thorpe (Surrey), A J Hollioake (Surrey), R C Russell (Gloucestershire), A R Caddick (Somerset), D W Headley (Kent), A R C Fraser (Middlesex), P C R Tufnell (Middlesex).

Umpires: S Bucknor (Jamaica) and S Venkataraghavan (India).