BRIAN LARA SAYS HE STILL HAS HOPE

I Still Have Great Hope For The World Cup - Lara

KARACHI, Pakistan - West Indies captain Brian Lara commented on the One Day series against Pakistan and the overall tour to the sub continent after the final One Day International in Karachi. Following are excerpts from his comments.

His assessment of the One Day Series:

We did not end on a very good note. We were missing key players and it was important that whichever 11 we put out on the middle that we gave of our best and  try to win the series. I think the guys did give of their best, it was tough and you have to take into consideration that we have been on the road for a pretty long time. Psychologically I think this is not going to affect us in our future One Day games especially over the next four to five months with the World Cup coming up. Of course we have to meet Pakistan in the opening game  and they would definitely feel buoyed because they have beaten us. I’m pretty pleased with where we are, we’ve seen the likes of young Lendl Simmons coming out and performing, he got a good score in the second game and I think we’re taking good shape. We are missing a couple of key players, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo but all in all I’m quietly confident that we can move away from here and still have great hope for the World Cup.

His overall take of the trip to Pakistan:

It was slightly disappointing. There were key moments in the series in the Tests and One Dayers. We played really well in Multan after a poor performance in Lahore and should have gone on to win that Test match if we took a couple more catches and you know from then on we could only draw the series and we came to Karachi and lost. I thought that in the Test series we found ourselves, like we’ve done in the past, in winning positions and couldn’t close the opposition off and in losing positions and couldn’t really hang on for a draw and that is something that has been around and has been branded on the West Indies team for the last few years. Unfortunately it happened again but I’m still seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and I think in the Test arena we’ve got England next in May and it’s something that we should look forward to. On a whole we’ve enjoyed Pakistan, it came on the back of a couple of One Day tournaments so it was always going to be tough but the guys have played three and a half months of tough cricket and we’ve just got to go away from here, get some rest and get ready for the new year.

On how the team has progressed over the three and a half month tour to the sub-continent:

If you look at the first couple months in Malaysia and the ICC Champions Trophy you can tell that we went out there, we won games against very good teams, we got to the finals of the ICC Champions Trophy to defend our trophy we won two years ago. Again we faltered over the last hurdle like we did against Australia like we did in Malaysia but the fact that we got there (to the final) is enough for us to work with. I think in the One Day game we are going to enter the World Cup a very confident unit. We’ve got some work to do, some little areas to work on and I’m sure we’re going to do that in the next couple of months to ensure that we are fully ready for the World Cup.