'We're Not Down in the Dumps'
West Indies captain Brian Lara is confident his team can put the 2-0 Test series defeat aside and give a good showing in the upcoming five-match ODI series against Pakistan.
Lara spoke with the media after the third and final Test match against Pakistan in Karachi.
Following are excerpts from his comments.
On how the series panned out:
It's disappointing but you have to give credit where it's due. The Pakistanis played tough cricket throughout and they knew that they had wickets together, they keep plugging away.
In terms of how the guys played I am still very proud of them, they tried their best and we worked pretty hard after the Lahore Test match I thought that we played pretty good cricket in Multan and the pitch here (in Karachi) didn’t offer us much and of course, Pakistan playing at home are accustomed to the conditions and knew exactly how to play on such a pitch. They adapted to the conditions better than we did. I still felt that we were still in there at least to save the match. To go down 1-0 is much better than 2-0.
On how the squad shaped up on a whole during the series:
Coming to Pakistan on the whole and playing a Test series, it's the toughest conditions that you can actually play in. We have some young players who are coming out and expressing themselves -- the stand out for sure is Jerome Taylor, I thought he was outstanding. (Denesh) Ramdin keeps improving and it shows that we do have the youngsters coming through. This tough experience is definitely going to serve them well in the future.
We are not down in the dumps, we are still very positive and we are moving on to the One Day games, a game that we play a lot better than in the Test arena and we are looking forward to the remaining two weeks here.
On whether the Test series defeat will affect the morale going into the One Day series:
We are quite capable of separating the two (ODIs and Tests). Performances in the Test matches still leave a lot to be desired but we are on the up-and-up in the One Day arena.
We've played good cricket, in the last two to three months we've played in a couple of One Day tournaments (the DLF Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy) and we got in to both finals so we are going to put the Test series behind us. There is no more Test cricket until May, our main focus now is April 28th (sic) which is the finals (of the World Cup) in Barbados so we now have a lead up to that time and we are going to try to enjoy, try to resume normal service in the One Day game and I'm sure the guys are going to be up to it.
Unfortunately we won't have a full squad, Ramnaresh Sarwan has a small hairline fracture in his instep and he's one of our main players in the One Day game. He will be missed but we definitely have the reserves to do well.
On what is the most disappointing thing coming out of the Test series:
It's hard to pin down. I thought we looked good in Multan, we put a team under pressure at home, an A team, a top team and to do that to Pakistan is a tough job and to get it done was good. We did not close it off but we did put them under pressure and I thought moving on from there it was going to be upward mobility but unfortunately it didn't happen in this Test match and looking back at the series you would sum it up the same way as other series where we find ourselves in difficult positions and can't get out of it with a draw and then we find ourselves in winning positions, (as) in Multan, and can't close it off.
These are things that we are accustomed to and I thought a draw in this Test match, not necessarily a win, but a draw and a 1-0 defeat in Pakistan was definitely something that we would take up in a positive way. You'd look back and say the first session of the first Test match where we were 41 without loss and ended up at lunch with six wickets down, that definitely puts us behind the eight ball in that Test match but from then I thought that we played good cricket until the last session today (final day of third Test).