Once, Twice, Three Times a Lara

I can't help thinking that the timing of Brian Lara's second return to the captaincy of the West Indies cricket team is auspicious. And well thought out.

Coming off a stretch of failures so extensive that the odd Windies win is no more than a brief oasis in a Sahara of losses, here they are now, playing a seven-match ODI series against the weakest team in the world. On home territory, to boot.

At age 37, the Prince of Port-of-Spain, the best batsman in the world, still appears to have another six to eight years of good cricket ahead of him. True, those years should rather be spent in the context of five-day Test matches than to expose him to the rough-and-tumble of one-day cricket - which is where he finds himself now. But here he is, captaining a seven-match series of one-day internationals.

So how does this square with being either auspicious or well thought out?

In the first place, I believe Lara has made it clear that he would love to play in the 2007 World Cup. There is no question that he will command a place on the West Indies World Cup team. So what he has to do is to keep himself at a level of fitness to accommodate that aspiration.

Secondly, the recent captaincy of Shivnarine Chanderpaul failed both in the winning column and in the column of personal batting performance. Indeed, Chanderpaul's unbelievably tortured open stance must have been a reflection of the torture in the windmills of his mind that produced the ever increasing burden of captaincy.

But beyond that, his captaincy was outstanding for its inability to inspire. And while there was an understandable desire for a more youthful team member to be made captain, for someone you could look to long-term as a leader, it was this - the capacity to inspire - that appears to have become central in the thinking and planning.

My own analysis of this group of cricketers playing for the West Indies is that it has everything it needs -- everything except spirit. And it is that missing spirit which will sustain and drive a team to soar from the commonplace into the rare.

So what do we expect to happen now? Well, under Lara the Windies have won their first two ODIs and at the time of writing have won two out of two. True, with as weak a team as Zimbabwe as the opposition, the Windies could probably have won under the captaincy of, well... Fidel Edwards for that matter.

But what is really happening here is that these regular losers are being positioned in the process of developing a culture of winning, and the confidence that comes from it.

That they are doing this under Lara?s captaincy is going to be a big boost not only for the team but also for Lara himself and his abilities as a leader.

For this is precisely where he has been found wanting in the past. Not in his batting or his fielding. But in his leadership. And this goes far beyond looking more inspiring than Chanderpaul.

It goes to the heart of leadership which is best defined as the development of a sense of trust - the notion that those who follow have to be able to trust that the leadership is trustworthy.

If this trustworthiness can be sustained through the Zimbabwe tour, the Indian tour and whatever comes after, then it is my thesis that the unthinkable has a good chance of happening; that the West Indies can be in the finals of the World Cup in the Caribbean and that they can triumph.

The question is? Did some one in the WICB really think this through like this? Or was it someone in WIPA? But that is another discussion, and I am sure there will be those who will follow that one avidly.

But if someone did think this through, then hats off to him/her. It makes perfect sense for the other World Cup teams to worry when they see Brian Lara leading the West Indies onto the field of play against them.

I have never thought that Brian Lara was the best captain the West Indies has had; that title goes to Frank Worrell, with Clive Lloyd as runner-up. But I have no doubt whatsoever that Lara, the most controversial figure in the West Indies, is the greatest batsman the West Indies has known. Nor do I have any doubt that his presence at the helm presents another opportunity for team members to be inspired and raise their game.

In the current circumstances, Lara is the right choice for captain.

Until he chooses to mess up.

Which I pray he will avoid doing.