W.Indies v England Test (R)

[OldFanatic]

Agreed. One of the best era in test cricket was during Clive Lloyd's and Viv Richards' captaincy. I say that even considering today's Australian sides. Brian Lara's captaincy era was an extremely demoralizing one (and maybe he was not to blame for all of the problems). His personal output has been of a bit bizarre nature as well, as you say. What has been missing from the current West Indian side is the killer winning mentality they used to have. Until they get it back, it's hard for me to respect them like I used to back in the 70's to mid 80's. How much impact has Brian Lara had on match winning or even series winning performances? Very little. Having said that, I'll consider his achievement today to be an incredible feat worthy of respect.

[BhoysFC1995]

LARA 400!!!! (http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,9265917-23209,00.html)

truly and amazing job by lara.

[Andy TAUS]

Come on people, get real. No matter how dead the track is, and what the situation in the series is, you have to give proper credit where it is due. You have to take into account factors such as not playing stupid shots, amazing concentration, etc. The guy has done what nobody in the history of the game for 100+ years has done, for God's sake. If he's so overhyped, was it just a fluke that he had set a similar record 10 years ago? A true fan of the sport would tip their hat to this achievment, irrespective of the England or Australia sqabble.Chandu,

Yes, well done to Brian Lara. Now win the test as well !

I beg to differ on your statement of "The guy has done what nobody in the history of the game for 100+ years has done, for God's sake."

Don't you think that one D. Bradman some 50-70 odd years ago (eg 1930, v England, 334; 1934, v England, 304; etc; etc) did some amazing things ?

Guess it all depends on the colour of ones' glasses !

Andy T.

[johno]

they prepared a lifeless flat batting wicket to avoid a whitewash...
LOL see how low the windies have sunk..
now people are wanking themselves over lara's innings after his pathetic contribution in the first 3 games..
thats sad..


Don't be silly... Antigua has been one of the best batting pitches in the world for some time now, and many tests there get drawn... also, it happens to be the same ground that he walloped England on the last time, 10 years ago... oh, the memmories.. we have sunk yes, but we did not prepare a placid wicket... that just happens to be the way it is... for instance.. the wicket in the Oval in P.O.S. is always treacherous, seamy and bouncy on the first morning and dusty and cracked by the 3rd day. Barbados is often fast, but in recent times the pace has left it... If the windies wanted to prepare a wicket they would prepare a wicket that suited our bowlers best and we have an abundance of pacers.. no really top class ones, but the selectors refuse to pick our good spinners so we should go with pacey wickets. However in recent times none in the Windies have been pacey, and by recent times I am talking the last 12 or so years... our tracks used to be kinda fast, but now that is SA and AUS. Our pitches are not prepared or set up basically due to a lack of expertise and funding to get the proper turf/soil and maintainance.

As far as him being overhyped that is nonsense... he is the most exciting charismatic player in the game and certainly the most marketable outside of India (Tendulkar). Lara has been rescuer to the Windies, many, many, many times... he takes situations where we have no chance and breathes life in an innings, he has batted with tailenders, fought through injuries and is a better performer in crunch time than all cricketers in his era save possibly Steve Waugh and Jack... ummm for the life of me can't remember his last name, English keeper who Windies could never get out.. we would get the first 5 gone and he would stay there forever(he was clutch against the WI not agianst everyone) ... yes, back to Lara. I remember the last time SA toured the Caribbean we were faced with a tough total (313 on a pitch that was yet to yield a score above 250) and we had lost all hope and then he decided that with batsmen falling around him, he would hit out... he proceeded to sheppard the strike (something he does better than everyone in the game) and scored 91 while batting for the most part with tail-enders... or I can go way back to 93 when he and Haynes had a huge stand to help Windies beat Pakistan after being bowled out for less than 150 in the first innings of the match, he scored 96 in that innings and in quick time to complement Haynes who was the stabilizing factor through out the match... or just a few years ago what is it... 2 years or less, when he destroyed Sri Lanka with 4 centuries including a double hundred one of what is it now 5/6? we lost every match in that 3 test series despite Lara scoring 3 centuries and scoring less than 40 just once... arguably the best form any batsman has been in over 5 innings... with scores of 178, 40, 74, 45, 221, 130 comming after his first innings of the series (18)... You cannot judging from that series say that Lara does not perform in the crunch time... he scored buckets of runs in matches that the windies were down in... and its not that he often has low scores when windies lose/are under pressure... windies lose/are under pressure when he has low scores... there is no wicket more precious in all of cricket.. there has not been since about 93... when he leaves the crease all teams feel they have won the match... when he is at the crease captains frown and cringe... He has by far the largest appetite for mammoth innings... he is the only man past 350 twice.. he is one tripple century shy of tieing the Don for most tripple hundreds and that is only because he got run out in sydney for 277 by a selfish Hooper in 93...

Enough with performances.. what about shot making? No one finds gaps more easily.... no one has his repotoire of shots.. from the rediculously late cut to the tickle around the keeper than leaves long leg gasping for breath or the "reverse straight drive" (Sachin was bowling to him, outside of leg and Lara pivoted and hit him so fine that the fine leg never gave chase, the ball passed about 1 foot wide of the keeper and held that angle all the way to the pitch) to his pull strokes off one leg, to his back foot drives, to his pushes and nudges that race with immaculate timing to the boundary, or his calypso dances down the track to meet bowlers while dispatching them over the top... or my favorite from his 375 the long stetching sweeps that were premeditated, but fine and powerful...

Lara hits more fours than anyone but Jayasuriya and his average is much better, he takes safe shots for the most part but can go over the top with the best, his technique and forward defensive is impeccable... he is the best picker or spinners in the world as his record against Warne, Kumble and others show... pace does not bother him and there is generally no weakness in his game... bowlers generally intimidate batsmen... not Brian... he dominates bowlers.

He means more to the Windies than any 5 or 6 players you could take from the team... over-hyped? Pelé's importance to Brazil pales in comparrison to Lara's importance to the Windies... come on lad... u cant be serious

[johno]

Chandu,

Yes, well done to Brian Lara. Now win the test as well !

I beg to differ on your statement of "The guy has done what nobody in the history of the game for 100+ years has done, for God's sake."

Don't you think that one D. Bradman some 50-70 odd years ago (eg 1930, v England, 334; 1934, v England, 304; etc; etc) did some amazing things ?

Guess it all depends on the colour of ones' glasses !

Andy T.

No doubting that the Don was the greatest batsman ever to live... Rowe was probably just as talented though... but Lara is somewhere between the two, a hybrid, amazing talent, wonderful concentration and application of that talent. What Chandu is refering to I believe is score 400 runs... I mean look at this... 375+501+400 that's 936 runs in 3 innings.. granted one was first class, but no one else's record comes anything close to that... what makes this feat so great is the fact that it came just after the new record was set... he is the only player to ever reclaim the record and his knock was virtually chanceless... iirc Hayden's was dropped around 2something and not to mention it came against Zimbabwe...

[Andy TAUS]

mtkillamanjohno,

Point taken about Lara's recent innings. Hayden's have been somewhat bountiful also.

Point I was making to Chandu was that his enthusiasm for Lara's 400 seems to have wiped out all his memory wrt other great players & their scores.

Don Bradman's career-length test average was 99.9, a feat unlikely to be approached by anyone soon or in the future. Lara's average is about 30 runs less in comparison to SDB.

BTW, you have to score the runs no matter what the strength of the opposition. IMHO, England in the West Indies versus Zimbabwee in AUS, not much difference historically.

Cheers.

Andy T.

[OldFanatic]

Point I was making to Chandu was that his enthusiasm for Lara's 400 seems to have wiped out all his memory wrt other great players & their scores.
Yes, Don Bradman was the best ever and nobody has come close to his 99.9 average. I doubt anyone ever will. Also considering that Bradman had to play in the bodyline series, his achievement is on an even greater scale.

But that's not my point. Don Bradman didn't ever score a 400 in a test match, and Brian Lara is the only one who has achieved this feat and deserves respect. Even the great Bradman, if he was alive today, would give hearty congratulations to Lara.

[johno]

mtkillamanjohno,
BTW, you have to score the runs no matter what the strength of the opposition. IMHO, England in the West Indies versus Zimbabwee in AUS, not much difference historically.

Cheers.

Andy T.

Ok... sure! Zimbabwe have 1 quality player, ooops I am sorry had 1 quality player... Streak is gone.. Zimbabwe are the minnows of Test Cricket... England are not.. consider how they beat us in this series.. did Zimbabwe even put up a fight?

[Andy TAUS]

Ok... sure! Zimbabwe have 1 quality player, ooops I am sorry had 1 quality player... Streak is gone.. Zimbabwe are the minnows of Test Cricket... England are not.. consider how they beat us in this series.. did Zimbabwe even put up a fight?mtkillamanjohno,

If Zimbabwe has been such an easy pushover team over the past 10 years or so, why haven't others (Lara included) done the same against them ?

Case closed. :p

Andy T.

[johno]

mtkillamanjohno,

If Zimbabwe has been such an easy pushover team over the past 10 years or so, why haven't others (Lara included) done the same against them ?

Case closed. :p

Andy T.

Because it takes extreme skill and some favor, and for the batsman capable to be in form and a good pitch and good batsmen around him and after all that a bit of fortune that he does not see an unplayable ball early in the innings which a bit of luck a bit of skill... If you look at teams' totals against Zimbabwe they are generally higher than when playing against other teams... moments of brilliance come few and far between... I am not taking away the scoring of the runs away from Hayden, but he was facing inferior competition... I think England showed in this series that we are not a dominant team (understatement of the year) and Zimbabwe never challenged Australia.

[OldFanatic]

Why did Lara agree to call off England's second innings, and not take a chance of taking 5 wickets in 15 remaining overs?

[Peakite]

Because he probably had about five overs to bowl England out on a pitch that wasn't doing much in order to leave enough time to try and bat for a win.



Fantastic as is achievement as been, the record seems almost a little pointless in the game at the moment. Whilst very good batting is needed to get to that sort of level, unless you are playing against an all round poor side playing badly, conditions probably favour a drawn game. In Lara's case many of his lower scoring innings (above) have been much more important.

Whereas if anyone can ever better Laker, I suspect they'll be celebrating more than a record.

[johno]

Agreed. One of the best era in test cricket was during Clive Lloyd's and Viv Richards' captaincy. I say that even considering today's Australian sides. Brian Lara's captaincy era was an extremely demoralizing one (and maybe he was not to blame for all of the problems). His personal output has been of a bit bizarre nature as well, as you say. What has been missing from the current West Indian side is the killer winning mentality they used to have. Until they get it back, it's hard for me to respect them like I used to back in the 70's to mid 80's. How much impact has Brian Lara had on match winning or even series winning performances? Very little. Having said that, I'll consider his achievement today to be an incredible feat worthy of respect.

A couple things... Brian Lara was not to blame for our disapointing era... he was not at fault, field placing and tactics have always been good... the selection which he had little say in, was generally poor and despite his constant begging.... he could rarely get a quality spinner into the attack. West Indies cricket has been on a downswing... we were atop the world based soley on talent... now other countries have gotten some talent too and they have all had cricket academies for a while and thus have been training new blood to replace the older blood... Since Richardson retired as captain we have had very little talent come into the team and establish themselves... Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Gayle are about it as far as batsmen go.. and other than Ambrose and Walsh we have not had a really classy bowler, Dillon did well, but has problems with consistency, Franklin Edwards was genious but he has been banned from the team... everyone else is either not yet established, or not good enough long term... talent has been a major problem and management... I cant blame much on Lara... a captain does not make a team... imo Heath Streak was perhaps the 2nd best allrounder in the world, ok maybe 3rd... he would have made almost any team, but he could not make Zimbabwe any better... I have to back Lara, no other captain has meant as much to his team... if we won 10 games, he crossed 40 twice in 6 of them... his fate was the team's fate, not every time he played well we won, he had a lot of good scores in loosing efforts, but he played his heart out for the team...


Addressing the Calling the match off... i really doubted than in 30 mins we could have done much... the bowlers were tired.. the batsmen would not have been rushing things, taking it a bit easy - so i doubt that even if 2 quick wickets fell, anything would have come of the match.. u still have to get them out and u still have to worry about them delaying the game...

[OldFanatic]

Bump. Move to cricket forum.