Lara Hints at ODI Retirement
West Indies captain Brian Lara spoke with the media shortly after his team's crushing win over Pakistan in Multan in the fourth One Day International. Pakistan still lead the series 2-1 with one match remaining.Lara praised the blistering century by Marlon Samuels and also hinted at a possible retirement from One Day Internationals after the Cricket World Cup 2007 in the West Indies. Following are excerpts from his comments:
On his assessment of the overwhelming victory over Pakistan:
I think it has been long in coming, we should have won that game in Lahore with the Duckworth/Lewis (Method) giving Pakistan 191 to get in 35 overs, It was definitely in our favour, especially with how the pitch was playing but coming here today I thought the guys showed a lot of character being two nil down.
It's been a very long tour and I thought the effort today was exceptional, we played without a couple of our main strike bowlers in Jerome Taylor (rested) and Corey Collymore (flu virus) but you saw (Daren) Powell with his best bowling figures in One Day Internationals coming in and bowling really well and also Dave Mohammed in his first game bowled well. All in all I'm quite happy and proud of the performance and we must take it into Karachi to level the series.
On whether he was satisfied with Marlon Samuels' century:
I'm very happy and proud, not just satisfied. He has been having a tough time with the bat this year and to come out with such a magnificent century shows a lot class and hopefully he can carry it on from here. What we need now is consistency, we've got very very important cricket over the next six months in the One Day arena and we'll be asking him to come up trumps on a few occasions.
It shows his potential, for him more than anybody else or the team. I think it shows what he's capable of. What he needs to do now is to put it together more often than not and now we've seen it and we’re going to be asking him to produce and not necessarily that he has to produce a top performance like that but in the One Day Internationals, you need everyone contributing and I think this is going to do his confidence a whole heap of good.
On the pitch:
I think the pitch was good, there was always something in there for the fast bowlers early up and they utilized it quite well, Powell bowled really well in his first spell and Dwayne Smith, credit must be given to him as well. I think it was a good pitch and as the game wore on it dried up some more and you could have gotten runs. I think us limiting the Pakistanis to 209 was definitely the area where we won the game.
On what he would have done if he had won the toss:
We would have bowled. In the first couple of games we batted first because we lost the toss and it seems like the pitch gets easier for batting. This is Pakistan's home and they knew exactly what they wanted to do but I think because of the trend of the games, I think we were going to bowl.
On his own form:
It's been sketchy, not great. I don't mind going out with 30 to 40 runs to score each and every single game. I'm 37 years old and I know I have to make a contribution and I'm looking forward to the next few games.
I'm not sure if I am going to be playing any One Day cricket after the World Cup so I think it's coming up to a very important period for West Indies cricket and I would be looking to make my contribution.