Lara Explains Dropping of Sarwan
West Indies captain Brian Lara spoke with the media after the first day of the second test match in Multan. Following are excerpts from his responses:On whether it was a difficult decision to drop Ramnaresh Sarwan:
It wasn't designed as a drop. I think it is a situation where we tried to play the best possible team, the best combination to get a result.
We needed our bowlers and we also made a change – Fidel Edwards isn't playing and he is one of our main strike bowlers. (Runako) Morton has had a couple of opportunities in the last 12 to 18 months and made full use of it and unfortunately found himself out.
It is just a matter of taking what we think is the best team, that has performed. Ramnaresh Sarwan still remains one of our main players. He is going to miss five days of cricket but it is sort of designed to have a positive effect on him.
On whether he is satisfied with the effort from the bowlers:
I was very satisfied on such a track. The pitch again was made for batters, didn’t have the moisture it had in Lahore, and Inzamam (Ul Haq) won the toss and rightly batted. I thought we bowled in the right areas, we created five chances for the day and we took four and sometimes you get the result of it the following day, you come back and you wrap up the remainder of the team but that’s yet to be seen. I'm pretty satisfied with the job today and the effort in the field.
On the suggestion by a journalist that Pakistan is in a commanding position:
I don't think they are in a commanding position, on such a pitch it was very tough for the bowlers both pace and spin and to limit them to under three runs an over was a very good effort. That was the modus operandi today, to ensure that we kept the run rate down, take any chances that come to us and try to put the ball in the right areas.
I can't fault the bowlers for their effort today so I am pretty happy with the position of the match on such a pitch and when the opportunity come for us to bat we just have to make good use of it.
On the pitch:
The pitch looks very good. Of course there is going to be some deterioration but as far as I see it seems benign and full of runs. If we get out there and apply ourselves we can get a very good total but first of all we have got six wickets to get and that’s what we are going to be focusing on.