UFO Info Week-End

The-34 year-old has taken a physical and verbal battering during the past month and many in the Caribbean feel he should

The-34 year-old has taken a physical and verbal battering during the past month and many in the Caribbean feel he should no longer be in charge.Lara may not be a great captain but he has been the only member of the West Indian set-up to stand up and front the dire situation the home side have found themselves in. He has stated at the end of each defeat that he is happy to serve the West Indies in whatever capacity the board want him to. At times he has looked a forlorn figure and few would begrudge him this achievement and after this performance it will be hard for the board to take the captaincy away.Though the state of this series is different to 1994, when the West Indies were 3-0 up rather than 3-0 down, the manner in which Lara batted was almost identical to when he broke the record. Lara stated at the close of play that he is chasing the record and the West Indies want a first innings total of over 700.There is no finer sight than Lara in full flow and England fans would have felt slightly short-changed had they not witnessed at least one memorable innings from him during this series. But even they would not have expected a display of such genius. For the first three Tests England kept the world’s leading batsman in check but yesterday Lara showed just why he will go down as one of the game’s greatest players.During this stunning innings the left-hander played like a man with a point to prove.

Lara has struggled for runs in this one-sided series and his captaincy has been widely criticised. The sun, the sea and a series win has made following Michael Vaughan’s side in the Caribbean an unforgettable experience but before yesterday’s amazing scenes here even the most one-eyed follower would admit there had been one ingredient missing: Brian Charles Lara.
That, however, changed on the second day of the fourth Test when Lara became only the second player in the history of Test cricket to score over 300 runs in an innings on two occasions. Lara’s monumental feat, which took the West Indies to 595 for 5 by the close, has only been matched by Don Bradman, the man regarded as the greatest batsman this game has seen.The Don’s triple hundreds ­ 334 and 304 ­ could be described as small ones compared to Lara’s ­ 375 and 313 not out ­ and the Trinidadian now needs only 68 runs today to reclaim the world record he lost to Matthew Hayden six months ago. Hayden broke Lara’s total of 375 ­ scored at the same ground against the same opposition in 1994 ­ when he amassed 380 for Australia against Zimbabwe in October and England’s bowlers know they will have to get the left-hander out to avoid being on the wrong end of another record. From an England supporter’s point of view this Test series is now perfect.

The pressure could scarcely have been more intense at the end of the opening day of the second Test in Kingston. The West Indies were 34 for 4, replying to Australia’s 256, and yet another collapse to defeat seemed inevitable.What followed was the stuff of dreams. In spite of ­ or, more probably, because of ­ his own and his team’s crisis, Lara amassed 213 and followed that with an unbeaten 153 in the second innings of the next Test to send the West Indies into an implausible 2-1 lead in the series.He reeled off a third hundred in the last Test of the series but it was not enough to prevent Steve Waugh’s desperate team from claiming a victory which earned the tourists a share of the spoils.Fast forward to last Thursday. Somehow, aided by a benign pitch on the ground where he accumulated his world record 375, he once again found the inspiration to repeat the revival.. “No captain, no team, wants to go down for the first time in their history as losing all their Test matches at home.”It the kind of situation that had stimulated him to his great deeds against the Australians in 1999.