Ahmedabad, Oct. 7: The renovated Sardar Patel Stadium at Motera is where defending champions, the West Indies, begin their title-defence campaign — taking on Zimbabwe in the qualifying stage of the ICC Champions Trophy on Sunday.

For the record, Zimbabwe last won a one-day international against a major cricketing nation when they beat the West Indies by 21 runs three years back at Harare.

In a recent ODI series, Zimbabwe were routed 0-3 by South Africa but a narrow 3-2 victory in a preceding home series against Bangladesh (August 2006), will at least give them hope of turning out a decent performance in the opening stage of the month-long event.

Brian Lara’s men come into the tournament high on confidence, having recorded a convincing 4-1 victory at home over India. They have a well-balanced look to their side with strength clearly their batting.

According to curator Dheeraj Prasana, "It will be a good batting track, and teams like the West Indies, who have good batsman in their ranks can score more than 260 runs. On the other hand fast bowlers will get some advantage from the wicket," he said. Zimbabwe coach Kevin Curran said that a target of 260 will be a competitive one on this pitch. "I have seen the wicket, it looks a good batting track. I was thinking about the dew factor, but there was no dew when we practiced on Friday. I think if we can score 260, it will be a good total to fight."

Making the next grade in this round-robin qualifying tournament would be an uphill task for this Zimbabwe side.

More than the results, it is important for them to see how well they function as a unit and present themselves when pitted against the top nations.